Sensitivity
by xXSedationXx
Summary: Post Season 2 - After the Big Sleep - Chloe Armstrong makes some decisions about her long-term happiness, and whether a certain acerbic Doctor has been the better choice all along. Chloe/Rush.
1. Imprisoned

**A/N: I do not own SGU, and this drivel of my own over-active imagination. Please enjoy!**

Chloe Armstrong stared at the FTL light that filtered in through the single window of her cell, her mind focused on the latest equations that Dr. Rush had provided her with. She had been happy that when the blue aliens had fixed whatever they had done to her that her knowledge of advanced mathematics had stuck around and not even the three years of being frozen had dulled her ability to calculate the jumps in her head. At the moment however she was deeply depressed that she was back under lock and key, guarded in a room away from the crew; this time for nothing more than punching Matt in the face for his rude comments on the time she had been spending with the science team.

She hadn't meant to punch him, she kept telling herself, but deep down she had enjoyed the moment immensely, especially seeing the shock across her lover's face that she would hit him. His insinuations had become blunter as time had gone on, and Chloe was finding herself quickly growing tired of his insecurity of her time spent with one pragmatic doctor. She rolled over on the bed, away from the window, her mind still lost in equations as the door opened. Her lunch for the day was being delivered by TJ today. The medic most likely had come to give her updates. Punching one of the crew, especially a military officer in the mess, could not go unpunished. TJ smiled at her as she set the tray down next to the bed, taking a seat on the chest nearby.

"Young has made an announcement that you are to be released at the end of the week." Tamara told her, wringing her hands together. "Provided that you make a public apology to Scott, and then keep your temper under control from there on."

"I don't think that will be an issue, TJ, except that I am not sorry for hitting Matt for what he said." Chloe sat up, taking a piece of dried fruit off the metal tray and popping it in her mouth.

"Regardless, make it sound convincing. You know you're being made an example of so that everyone else doesn't start randomly starting fights in the mess hall, right?" TJ pinched the bridge of her nose as they spoke, the whole thing causing her a massive headache here lately.

"Oh, it will sound convincing, but I think that this is the end of my relationship with Matt. His insecurities and his accusations are too much to handle any more. Coupled with the lying about his past with James, and his outright statements of me sleeping with Dr. Rush, regardless of the truth, I don't see how it will work out." Chloe hugged her knees to her chest, sighing heavily. "I'll ask Camille to get my things from his room and move them back to mine for now. I think it would be best if I don't prolong my intentions."

"Young will be disappointed, but I understand Chloe. If you can't trust the person you're with, then how can you continue to be with them?" Tamara had been wondering the same things lately, since they had all woken up at the edge of the new galaxy. Air, water, and food had been quickly procured, they were back in good shape as far as the necessities were concerned, but it was almost like everyone had woken up angry after the three years in cryo.

"Exactly." Chloe supplied, taking another bite of the dried fruit. She wasn't going to touch whatever was in the bowl on the tray, it smelled like boiled turnips, and who knew how it was going to taste; since it seemed to be something they picked up on one of the planets they had Gated down to recently. "I'll speak to the commander, if he'll come and visit me. Since I'm not allowed out yet."

"Make sure you speak to Scott before Camille. Extending the inevitable is cruel to him, as well as you." TJ nodded as she rose up off the chest and moved to the door way. "See you in a few days Chloe. We've got enough water now to have a girl's bath night. James wanted to know if you still had those bottles of nail polish from what you brought on board."

"Yeah, the pink and the red. Am I sensing it's a pedicure type of night?" Chloe smiled as TJ's face crinkled into a small laugh.

"I think so, and some of the recent plants I found on the last planet, when crushed, make a pretty decent shampoo. We were all thinking we'd get some hot water from the mess, an old crate, the nail polish and have a beauty night when you're up for it."

"I think I'd like that." Chloe smiled, still hugging her knees to her chest. "Better get back before you're accused of fraternizing with the "bad" kid." Chloe's smile went wider as TJ nodded, grinned, and then left, leaving Chloe with her lunch. TJ wasn't that bad, and James had never lied to her. It would be nice to wash her hair as well after all this time. The door hissed closed, and Chloe pulled the notebook Rush had left her close again. She was thankful he had sharpened the pencil for her before he had dropped it off, the graphite scratching along any blank portion of the paper she could use.

Maybe the next planet they Gated to would yield some fibrous plant that could be made into paper. The science team would appreciate that, especially since torn blank pages from her book and her journal had become such a precious commodity in the last few months. Paper making couldn't be that hard, could it? Mash up some plants, float them in water, and then let the fibers come to rest on a screen. Oh, a screen. That would be pretty difficult to make. Hadn't the ancient Egyptians rolled woven strands of papyrus together for paper? Chloe would have to check on someone's laptop when she was released. She was fairly certain she had heard Dr. Jackson say something to that effect in the videos she had been watching before the freeze. Maybe a girl's night, and figuring out paper would keep her occupied until the dissolution of her relationship with Matt blew over, maybe.

Matt, Chloe thought as she put the pencil down next to Dr. Rush's notepad, her fingers seeking out another slice of the dried fruit. He was willful and arrogant, but also kind and selfless – complete contradictions of themselves. And Chloe was stuck with a choice of waiting out the bad mood, or going ahead and ending the relationship. She was ready to end it – things had started to go bad before the freeze, and especially after the kind words Dr. Rush had for her after the aliens had set her right.

Dr. Rush. That man was a question wrapped inside an enigma, but he had been the one to risk everyone to make sure she hadn't come to any more harm. He had saved her in the beginning from the alien ship, when Young was going to blow it up with both of them still inside. He was ruthless, manipulative, and above all else, not to be trusted. Or so she had thought. Her time in the ice hadn't been sleep, she had dreamed the entire time. And her dreams had been of the two men that meant the most to her in the past four years. Matt…and Rush.

Chloe had thought she hated the older scientist for the cold dismissal of her father's death, of his pragmatic approach to her condition brought about by the blue aliens. As time had gone along, she had seen his reasoning in action, had witnessed the decisions behind those brown eyes, hidden behind the curtain of graying hair. Matt loved her, but he had too much red in his ledger to her, and she had too much red in her ledger to Rush. Love faded over time, or was replaced by lifelong friendship, of that Chloe was certain. Right now, she was certain she was no longer in love with Matt, but couldn't admit to herself that she was a guilty as he was for the rapidly deteriorating state of their relationship. She had tried over the past few weeks, Matt hadn't. Rush had been an ear, which ultimately had resulted in her punching of Matt, that and his disparaging comments about the older man.

Chloe sighed again, falling back prone on the bed as she contemplated the next few days alone. Alone with her thoughts and regrets of what would happen over the next few weeks, and the ultimate result of where her actions were taking her to; Dr. Nicholas Rush's bed. Strangely enough, Chloe found the thought mildly intoxicating as her eyes finally fluttered close and sleep overtook her.

**Thanks for Reading! If you liked, please leave me a review.**

**If you like music - This chapter was penned to: Waltz After Lasse in Lyby by the Danish String Quartet.**


	2. Freedom

**Hello again! Hope you're enjoying so far - Again I to not own SGU.**

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><p>The apology had been rushed – noticed only by a few members of the crew, made public in the Mess Hall, as per Young's orders. Chloe hadn't give Matt the chance to speak, having delivered her half-true apology as quickly as her lips would allow. She neither looked him in the eyes, nor bothered for his feelings as she had tacked on that their relationship was over, that it was better for them both to not be together anymore. She had felt the eyes of the crew as she had left, turning on her heel and practically running from the Mess Hall as fast as she could without looking like a coward. She had hoped that she had made it out with some dignity intact as the metal bowl crashed against the wall after her. So much for Matt taking the break up like an adult, Chloe though bitterly to herself as she rounded the corner quickly, crashing into a lithe chest, arms automatically wrapping around her to break her fall. She was fairly certain from the masculine smell that was assaulting her senses that she had run into the one person she had hoped to avoid today.<p>

"Now, Miss Armstrong, where are you off to in such a hurry?" The Scottish voice filled her ears; the lit of his pronunciation making her insides tighten in pleasant ways, along with the overwhelming male scent of him. Chloe was having trouble keeping herself focused enough without having a reminder of why she had chose to end her relationship with Matt right in her face. Rush held her a moment long as she regained her footing. A blush spread across her cheeks as Chloe pushed a strand of stray hair away from her face, her eyes downturned, afraid that she'd start crying if she told the older man what she had just done. A commotion started in the Mess down the hall, and Rush's arms slid from her shoulders, certain that she had regained her balance, his lips sliding into a half-smirk as he listened to the yelling.

"What the hell was that?!" Came the raised voices from the Mess, Greer's tone clear that he was restraining someone. Certainly the Lieutenant wasn't trying to follow Chloe after the apology. Rush knew that Young had given her until today to make her apology to Scott, and he had hoped that all parties involved would keep some composure. Rush narrowed his eyes, scrubbing his face with both hands. Scott was hot-headed, arrogant, and downright an annoying prick when he didn't get his way. Rush had taken to avoiding the Lieutenant at every opportunity. It seemed today would be a good day for the both of them to avoid the younger man. Annoyed that the brilliant woman in front of him was obviously shaken by the experience, he came up with his plan immediately.

"Trying to be a man, and ending up being a child trying to play solider all along." He scoffed softly as he shook his head. "Alright, I need your help on the Bridge. We need to calculate the next jump." Rush turned away from her and started off down the hallway, assuming she would follow.

"Dr. Rush?" Chloe asked quietly, finally looking up, able to put her emotions back in check. He stopped and half-turned back to her, one eyebrow raised at her words. She took that as the only answer she was going to receive. "Thank you." She said softly, wringing her hands. "For catching me." Chloe tried to smile as she hid behind the masks she was so use to wearing. Dutiful daughter, Senator's aid, loving girlfriend, mathematical genius, all masks hiding the pain inside. Rush snorted, then nodded.

"We have calculations to make, Miss Armstrong. I suggest you pick up the pace." Was all he said as he turned to continue down the hallway. Chloe frowned as she rushed to follow, quickly falling in step behind him as he continued his assured pace down the hallway. She had practice in staying just a step and a half behind, especially when she had been working with her father. She didn't feel like an aid then, tennis shoes, yoga pants and tank top the only clothing that she felt was wearable during the day. It was that or her dress, or borrowed fatigues. Somehow Chloe though the dress was a bit pretentious even at the best of times. Rush slowed his pace, walking beside her, instead of in front of as they walked onto the Bridge. Volker looked up from the console he had been watching for the past few minutes.

"Three Gates are locked out, but we have two viable ones available down the line from what we can tell." Volker told them as Rush sat down in what had been dubbed the Captain's seat. Chloe slid behind an open console, thankful for the distraction. James smiled at her from where she was reviewing star-charts of the new galaxy. Chloe weakly returned the smile as James' brows knit together in sympathy, the two women's conversation completely unspoken, but not lost on Rush. Perceptive as always, he waited until they had shared a few more unspoken words that only women seemed to understand, because God Above knew he had no idea what was going on other than some form of telepathic communication that only women seemed to possess. At least Gloria had never subjected him to anything of the sort, may she rest in eternal bliss for being one of the most patient souls he had ever met. Rush had enough of the memory, and the younger girls conversation. He felt he was back at Uni teaching an irritating class of half listening students.

"Very good, Volker, now if Miss Armstrong can stop her gossiping for ten seconds, she might be able to calculate the jump to put us in range, or is that too difficult for you to master right now?" Chloe's eyes went wide as she turned to look at Rush, his mercurial mood towards her confusing her even more. He had just been semi-nice to her in the hallway, and now he was back to insufferable bastard again. Eyes narrowing as she bit back her own comment, she turned back to her screen, quickly taking in the course, and making minor adjustments, her teeth clenched together as she worked.

"I just sent the Jump coordinates over to your console, Dr. Rush." Chloe couldn't help the bitter way she twisted his name as she spoke, refusing to look at him for an entirely different reason than her refusal to look at Matt. She remained silent, eyes on her own console as he undoubtedly checked her math himself before imputing the coordinates to make the FTL jump. Her irritation grew with each passing second that he checked over the coordinates. He knew they were right, she knew they were right, why did he have to make such a humiliating show of checking her work when they both knew that there was no way her math was flawed.

"Finally someone useful." He muttered, hands moving across his console as Destiny jumped to FLT, taking them closer to the two active Gates, taking them to what could only be their next stop in the endless race to find water and food. Chloe rose from her console, intent on making a quick getaway from everyone. This latest bout of confinement making her yearn for the quiet of her own thoughts once again. Rush watched her as she moved to the steps, keeping her head high even if her step betrayed how angry she was at the moment. Chloe stopped as he held up a hand to her. "The latest calculations?" He asked, half-smirk sliding back over his face as she stared at him, her immediate contempt of him evident in her face.

"I'll bring you your damned notebook later." She snipped at him, continuing up the stairs and out of the room before he could say anything else to set her blood boiling at him. She could almost hear the laughter in his eyes as she went, breaking into a run as she made it far enough down the hallway for the slap of her shoes to not be heard. She didn't stop until she was back at her rooms, her hand slamming into the panel to open the door, quickly palming the matching panel inside to close the door behind her. Back to the door, Chloe slid to the floor hugging her knees to her chest as she sobbed, ignoring the pull of the FLT light that had always seemed to soothe her. Three hours into her day, and already she was crying – it was not going to be a good day.

Back on the Bridge, Rush sat back in his chair, watching Destiny cut through space, his mind turning over and over newly gathered data. Arms folded across his chest, he made a decision he knew he was going to regret later.

"Vanessa?" He asked softly, as both James and Volker turned to look at him in disbelief. Rush rarely talked to anyone with their given name, always referring to others by rank, or by last name only. "Would you be as kind to peek in on Miss Armstrong and make sure that she is coping well after her public apology? I believe that neither party took it very well." James nodded once, still trying to figure out the sudden mood swings this morning.

"I'll be back soon." James said as she stood and quickly went after Chloe. Volker, sensing this was a time that he shouldn't poke at the beast, turned his gaze back to his console as if nothing had just happened. Rush continued to stare at the FLT light as the sliced through the black of space, mind continuing to work on this newest intrigue.

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><p><strong>AN: The song for this section is Mombosa By 2CELLOS, from the Inception Movie - Enjoy!**


	3. Dismissal

Chloe had cried for the better part of an hour, as Vanessa had slowly stroked the other girl's hair, neither speaking, nor making move to leave her. Vanessa had finally coaxed Chloe onto the bed, and they had remained there until the radio at her belt had crackled to life.

"James this is Young, come in." Vanessa looked down at Chloe with sympathy, knowing the feeling of a broken heart. She waited to respond until Chloe bit the curve of her thumb, keeping the choked sobbing to a quiet sniffle here and there. Grateful, Vanessa grabbed her radio from her belt, radioing back.

"This is James, go ahead Colonel." Vanessa didn't stop stroking Chloe's hair as she waited.

"Are you with Chloe?" Young asked, sitting in his "office" with Camille Wray, a frown on his features as he pinched the bridge of his nose to alleviate the tension headache that was threatening to put him to bed as soon as he could be rid of Camille.

"I am sir." James replied back.

"Would you be as kind to let Chloe know that I would like to have a word with her." Young was about over all the interpersonal relations nightmares that seemed to be cropping up daily. People were angry, yelling at one another, and generally being all around assholes to one another. This would be the first of a very long list of personnel check-ins he would have to make today.

"Yes sir, I'll make sure that she knows. James out." Vanessa looked down at Chloe, wondering what would happen now that everything seemed to be imploding.

"I suppose I should go then, not make the Colonel wait." Chloe sniffled, pushing herself up into a sitting position, her shoulders hunched a bit as she rubbed her bare arms, the normal chill of the ship magnified on her skin from all the crying she had done. "Thank you Vanessa. Girls night tonight?" She asked, a hopeful look on her face.

"I'll get with TJ, and Park and see if she wants to come along as well. Might make her feel better to have some regular interaction with other females." Vanessa noted, nodding her head as she rose off the coverlet, cracking her neck as she stood.

"Not too many others, we don't want our night turned into an all out estrogen fest." Chloe added, pulling her thin jacket on, and glancing at her mirror to make sure her eyes weren't too puffy. After all, it wouldn't do to let anyone know how much this morning had took out of her.

"I'll see if I can't get a bottle from Brody's still as well. With the fruit we found recently, hopefully it will have improved the taste." Vanessa straightened her fatigues and nodded once, her curled fist bumping the panel to open the door, before she moved to return to her duties, her step taking her back to the Bridge.

"Sounds great." Chloe smiled and waited at the door until Vanessa had rounded the corner at the end of the corridor, before turning and walking in the opposite direction towards what could only be called the Colonel's quarters, used more as an office for the most part – Chloe wasn't even sure if the man slept any lately. Pressing the heels of her hands into her eyes, Chloe did her best to let yet another mask slide into place, knowing it would be better to approach this meeting with as little emotion coursing through her as possible; knowing she was about to fail completely.

She stopped outside the door, already open, as Camille Wray shot her a forced smile. Colonel Young was speaking into a radio, as he finally put the device down and motioned for Chloe to come on in. His best officer smile was plastered in place.

"Come on in Chloe, and know that I don't agree with this any more than you do. Close the door behind you please." Young sounded cordial enough as Camille stared daggers at the older man's face. Camille rose to her feel, pouring a homebrewed tea into the three metal mugs on the table, her place on the couch looking much more welcoming now that the woman had vacated her position. Chloe palmed the panel next to the wall and took a few steps closer to Young's desk.

"You speak as if something distasteful is about to be said." Chloe observed, her fingers wrapping around the warm mug that Camille handed her, grateful for the strong brew – the best they had found to coffee since their arrival aboard Destiny.

"Not as distasteful as he would make it sound." Camille added, a careful smile falling in place on the Asian woman's features. She handed a cup to Colonel Young which he took with a muttered "thank you" before he leveled his gaze back on Chloe.

"We've already spoken to Lieutenant Scott." The measured statement hanging in the air as Chloe's fingers tightened around her mug. "Would you care to elaborate?" He asked, a small note of sympathy making his words softer than the previous.

"Not really." Chloe spit out, her lips curving down into a frown. "Whatever business happened between the Lieutenant and I is frankly none of either of yours concern." Chloe kept her tone as even as possible, biting the inside of her cheek to stop the tears that were threatening to form in the corners of her eyes. This had been her decision, after dreaming all possibilities during their time frozen. Things happened for their reasons, and she had been careful in her assessment.

"Well, unfortunately," Camille started, before Young cut her off with a wave of his hand.

"What Camille is concerned about are the interpersonal relations aboard the ship. If this decision, this business you ended with Scott renders either of you incapable of working together, or makes any of the crew feel uncomfortable in the way either of you treat one another, then we'll have problems. You're one of the few people I can trust to Gate down to viable planets; you have the knowledge and ability to work the main systems of the ship." Young elaborated, taking a sip of his tea and grimacing at the taste. He would need to mention to Becker that the blend needed to be tweaked as soon as possible.

"I don't see how any of this is relevant." Chloe shrugged, knowing where the conversation was leading.

"It's relevant because I can order Scott to do his job, Chloe, you on the other hand I cannot order to do anything at all. Your work on Destiny so far has been for the good of everyone aboard, so I've never had to question your motives. What I need to know is whether I should start questioning them now." Young finished, his mug slamming down on the desk a bit forcefully. Chloe had the wits about her to jump at the raised tone and loud noise.

"I told Matt it was over, it has been, for a while. He's too angry and jealous any more to see that he had nothing to fear." Chloe explained as Camille leaning back into the couch, listening to the younger girl's words, her own hands wrapped around the warm mug, savoring the heat. "You'll have no trouble out of me. Remember I was a Senator's aide; I'm fairly certain I know when to smile on command and speak saccharine sweet words to smooth over any rough patches that may occur, however, I will not stand by and wait for the Lieutenant to grow up. We've been out here for a long time, and frankly, besides being a great heater in bed, he has little else to offer me." Chloe felt the heat in her cheeks as she leveled her gaze at Camille. "And you forcing the Colonel to do this is despicable, and manipulative at best. I hope you're happy with yourself." Chloe set her mug down on the desk, turned with purpose and left, not even to bother shutting the door behind her.

Young took a deep breath in, trying to rein his temper back under control; his fingers pinching the bridge of his nose once again, the headache making the space behind his eyes pound a staccato beat in his head. Camille leaned forward, her mug placed carefully on the table, a small sign from her parted lips as she settled back into the corner of the couch.

"Well, that went better that I thought it would go." She added quietly, folding her hands on her lap as she watched Young.

"Not well enough. How many does that make today displaying the same short temper when pushed?" He asked, bringing his own mug back to his lips, bitter or not, it was still tea, and he could almost pretend it would help his head.

"Too many. A significant portion of the crew is displaying hostile behaviors, especially when provoked. You yourself raised your voice at Chloe, even though I would wager she's one of your favorite people aboard the ship." Camille let her fingers slowly tap against her leg, thinking over the implications of this newest development. "Too much of the military personnel and civilians aboard the ship are high-strung, simple requests, or small jabs are being taken with the force of Rush on a bad day."

"Lot a, lot a work, that one." Young added, picking up the miserably short pencil, growing smaller every day, and making some marks on the paper scrap in front of him, jotting down some thoughts he'd later go over with someone other than Camille.

"True, but his normal temper has not escalated from what I can tell of the exchanges I've witnessed. James, Rush, Greer, Park, TJ and Eli seem to be the only ones not affected by whatever has everyone else riled up. What do they all have in common, that sets them apart from everyone else? Once we figure that out, maybe we have an answer in soothing everyone's tempers." Camille sighed thoughtfully, her fingers stopping their quiet tap as the room slipped into comfortable silence.

"Each of them has been off ship, but none of them in the same group. If it was something that happened to them off ship, Scott, Chloe and others wouldn't be affected either." Young immediately dismissed the notion that something on planet had happened to cause the changes. More likely something aboard the ship that was causing the issues.

"If we factor in that Chloe and Scott might just be upset over their recent change in dynamics, then Park would be the only anomaly in the group. " Camille thought aloud.

"If that were true, why would Park be any more immune than the rest of them?" Young asked, smirking. It was still unclear if Park's eyes would eventually heal, Young knew, so it wasn't something that any of them had seen. "Other than being entirely way too much of an optimistic personality."

"If Greer picked up some sort of immunity off ship, he may have passed it on to Park." Camille smirked, a playful light coming to her eyes as Young stared at her. "Oh come now Everett, surely you knew the two of them have a more intimate relationship than just being in the same place together?"

"Anyone else I should be aware of to worry about?" He added, shaking his head.

"Only Varro. I believe he has his eye on a pretty contractor that has been working in the hydroponics lab the last few weeks." Camille chuckled to herself as Young snorted.

"At least I can count on you for all the gossip." Young muttered, hands scrubbing his face as he continued to think over their latest crisis.


	4. Relief

**Hello lovies - I've been trapped inside since Sunday due to the weather, so I'm updating much sooner than I normally would be! Hope you enjoy!**

**．****. ****. ＋****.。 ****. ． ****. ****. ． 。 ﾟ。****, ﾟ****.**

Rush ground his teeth together as the chatter of female voices floated down his far removed hallway. He had become rather accustom to no one exploring this part of the ship, and thus his quiet was normally uninterrupted, especially when he was working on something rather difficult. His woefully short pencil placed next to one of his remaining notepads, Rush closed his eyes letting his ears bring him the image of the hallway. So much time in space and off to the dark corners of the ship had left him adept at "seeing" through his ears.

"I found it a few days ago, during routine patrol. It will be much better than the normal quarters we use to use, it even has this large Ancient crate in there that if we could ever find enough water we could probably take baths in." Lieutenant James' voice pierced through the giggles, causing Rush to groan internally. No, not in his hallway, not now of all times, not when he had so much work to get done, and quiet time was too few and far between these days. Four people, Rush decided, waiting for more talking to be done so that he could identify the others.

"Oh a bath would be the greatest thing in the world right about now." Rush identified the speaker as Lieutenant Johansen, the soft sigh of the blonde female's voice carrying down the corridor. With her renewed affair with the Colonel, Rush's opinion of the female had dropped slightly, but her actions with Chloe kept the Lieutenant in his list of people that he could tolerate, perhaps even like.

"Those showers just don't make me feel clean, even if they do work to keep the smell at bay." Rush's brow arched, Chloe. The third of the group identified, Rush tilted his head, eyes closed as he listened still. The girls had passed his door by then, and the scrape of a heel followed by a feminine giggle, lead him to the identity of the last of their group, Park. So the entire girl's team was taking time away from everyone else to invade his hallway for who knew what.

"Rush is down here somewhere, not exactly sure. Not like he leaves anything in his quarters to make them look lived in." James said, as Rush heard the door two rooms down from him open, the collective gasp, followed by a string of giggles and laughs. Water sluiced into a container, as boots and items sounded their fall to the floor. Rush grit his teeth together so hard his jaw was hurting. Never mind that their "girls night" was happening in his hall way, never mind that they were making so much noise it was impossible to block their chatter out, no, it was the sound water and articles of clothing being removed that kicked him square in the gut, making it impossible to focus back on his work.

"Oh, TJ, this smells wonderful, and it's soaping up like real shampoo even." Rush closed his eyes, his jaw going slack at the sound of Chloe's appreciative sigh. Whatever budding interest that had happened between them in their shared captivity, their checkered time together, Rush was certain of one thing; he desperately wanted to hear her sigh again, her body stretched beneath him. His time with Mandy had proven that he still wanted, no, craved human contact, and he'd be damned if he'd pass by an opportunity to feel that relaxation once again.

"It does smell very nice," Park commented with another giggle. Rush blocked them all out as he paced his room, eyes closing and then opening again with forced effort. He was relatively sure he wouldn't bump into anything in the room; it wasn't large enough to house anything of import as of late. He pinched the bridge of his nose with a groan, stopping on the far side of his bed as he turned to walk back the other direction.

"Hopefully we'll be able to figure out something for your eyes." Vanessa spoke softly as she helped Park with her sensible flats. "Pink or red? Which one do you think Greer would enjoy more?" Vanessa teased as a blush rose across Park's face. Rush leaned his head against the wall as he tried not to imagine what was happening in that room, and damn it if his imagination wasn't sparing any expense in supplying him a tormenting array of scantily clad women primping for just the sake of driving him insane. Never mind that this group was four members of a very small group of people he tolerated, never mind that he was thinking inappropriate thoughts about one of them, he had work to get done and this distraction was keeping him from it.

"It's not like I can see it," Park laughed, folding her hands on her lap. "Pink, it's more feminine and reserved; he'd notice that more than the red!" Chloe laughed from where she was leaned over the crate, fingers busy scrubbing her scalp almost raw. Rush's hand fisted tightly as he forced himself to breathe, he had work to do, he reminded himself.

"So, basically everything you're not is what you're saying?" Chloe shot back, keeping the smile in her teasing, so that it wouldn't be taken the wrong way. Gods, her voice was captivating when he was distracted like this, Rush decided as he put his back to the wall, work forgotten for the moment.

"Just because you jumped the first good looking male on board doesn't mean you're any less of a .." Park trailed off into laughter as Vanessa started painting the other woman's toes. "Oh! You would know I'm ticklish and choose just then to do that!" Eyes still closed, Rush let himself slide down the wall, until he was seated, one leg straight out, the other bended so that he could rest his arm on his knee.

"What about you TJ? Any update on tall, dark, and brooding?" Vanessa asked, focused on painting so that the sting of jealousy didn't become any worse than it was. "Crawled into his bed yet…again?" Vanessa ducked as TJ threw one of the large squares of cloth they had brought with them at her, the corners of her mouth tugging into a grin.

"It's air out the dirty laundry night apparently!" Chloe felt herself grinning as she used one of the bowls from the mess to rinse her hair out, before taking another of the squares to wrap her damn hair up in. "Oh God, TJ, that's exactly what I needed, clean hair," Chloe leaned back against one of the other crates in the room, absently flexing her bare toes as she watched the other girls. Rush felt a low heat in his abdomen, his mind only supplying him with Chloe's image now, hair wet, hanging around her strong shoulders, and that annoying purple yoga top he yearned to pull off her.

"Apparently." TJ sighed as she took her turn washing out her hair. "No, I've not crawled into his bed, so wipe that thought from your mind. We were frozen for three years, and there's so much going on, and well it's not like we're going to get home any time soon, or even find another planet like that one." TJ smiled as she began suddsing up her hair, rocking to the balls of her feet as she let her nails scrub away the grime and sweat that seemed to always be clinging to her after a long day in the infirmary. "I still dream about that place."

"The waterfall," Chloe breathed, closing her eyes. "And the lake, so clear you could see the bottom, pristine like a park that had been preserved from outside influence for hundreds of years. The sight of the sunrise and sunset, making up new constellations from the stars." Rush held his breath again, as the image of Chloe in his mind shifted, a white summer dress in a field of flowers, hair blowing in a breeze and a "come hither" look on her face, only for him.

"Fresh air and enough food for everyone." TJ added as she started to rise out her hair.

"Rationally speaking, there has to be at least dozens of planets out here that would be the same conditions as Earth. We've known about a lot of them for a while, but the possibility of us running into another planet that meets all the criteria for being habitable is very possible. I mean, even in our own galaxy we have around 11 billion possible life sustaining planets that would be orbiting around the right type of sun like star, so it's not impossible to think that out of all of the galaxies, all of the stars, and all of what we've already encountered that we won't find something just as beautiful, if not more so in this galaxy." Park smiled to herself. "I'd like to feel sun light on my skin again." She added with a chuckle.

"Here Here!" Chloe chimed in, smiling at Park's optimism. Sometimes the ever perky woman grated on Chloe's nerves, but times like now was when she loved Park the best. Rush's eyes snapped open as he heard footsteps from further down the hallway. Measured steps, in boots, one of the military on board, male. Rush's lip raised in a snarl as he got to his feet.

"That's right; it's not all a loss." Vanessa nodded as she finished up Park's toes. They all jumped as a sharp rap at the door left them all silent. TJ looked over at Chloe who was already moving to palm the door release. Hair wrapped, barefoot, and dripping tendrils of water on her shoulders as the door slid open, Chloe found herself face to face with the one person she wasn't ready to talk to yet.

"Um, hey, everyone." Scott muttered as he looked at James and then TJ, his eyes finally settling back to Chloe as he rubbed the back of his head. "Chloe, could I speak to you for a minute?" He asked, his eyes tight with tension as Chloe stepped out into the hallway, the room suddenly silent as she leaned over to close the door from the outside.

"What do you want Matt? You're interrupting the one bit of peace that the four of us can carve out finally." Chloe had no intention of fawning, or even being anything other than snarky at the moment. Scott squared his shoulders and nodded.

"I only need a minute, and then I've got the get back to rounds. I wanted to apologize. I know as well as you that we had been unhappy with one another lately, and I let myself be blinded by something that obviously wasn't happening. I'm fine with us, with whatever we had, being over, and I'm sorry I didn't react with the best of behavior. I just wanted to say that for everyone's sakes, I'd like to still be on friendly terms, and if that's not possible, at least civil terms. It would be less uncomfortable for everyone if we were." Matt tried to smile, but found he could only frown. Before Chloe could answer, another door slid open down the hall, and an unruly Scot snarled as he took two steps out of his room. Rush's face was contorted into one of rage at the unwelcome interruptions. The women had quieted down, and thus were not the focus of his ire right now, but the boy that had hurt one of the few people on the ship he actually considered to be on level with himself, had just pushed Rush past the point of his already short patience. Especially since the youth had decided to bother them all, when his mind had been just turned off enough to start imagining a lithe body stretched out beneath him under starlight. Rush hit the panel for the door release harder than he had intended.

"And for my sake would you all please take yourself out of this hallway and to somethefuckwhere else?! Some of us are trying to sleep without listening to the latest update on your drama-filled lives!" Rush gave them both a dismissive glare as he stalked back into his room, the door sliding shut behind him. Fingers once again pinching the bridge of his nose, Rush stripped out of his clothing and thought he might as well try to sleep since the child wanting to play soldier had ruined the women down the hall's evening. Worse was that he found himself actually caring that their evening had been interrupted, which had lead him to yell at them like a crotchety old man catching children playing on his carefully manicured front lawn. Pulling the coverlet over himself, he laid there glaring at the ceiling waiting for his quiet solitude to become just that, solitude, once again.

"You better go." Chloe muttered as she opened the door to rejoin the girls. "If you're serious about what you just said, then I agree. It would be better for everyone involved." Chloe padded back into the room and closed the door behind her, leaving a confused Scott standing alone in the hallway. After a few moments they all four could hear his footsteps retreating down the hallway.

"Do you think Rush meant us too?" Park asked in a quiet whisper.

"I think it would be better if we do stay here any longer than we keep somewhat quiet. Better yet, let's head to the infirmary, there are no patients in there now, and we can all curl up in one of the corners there and continue our evening with no risk of poking the bear any more than we already have." TJ spoke quietly, not a whisper, but not above what would carry outside of the room.

"Leave the crate, I'll come back in the morning and set it aside for a pass through recycling." Vanessa said as she stood, taking one of Park's hands to help her to her feet. They all four kept as quiet as possible as they gathered their belongings, tucking the items they had brought with them into pockets for the trek to the infirmary.

"Well, we know one thing." Chloe stifled a giggle as they started down the hall.

"What's that?" Vanessa asked, guiding Park along as they retreated, TJ falling in step with them.

"We know which room Rush is in now." Chloe grinned, the glint of mischief promised evident in her eyes.


	5. Anger Part 1

**Hello Dearies - here is another installment for you, earlier than expected due to the weather happening in my part of the country. Hopefully I'll be freed from the ice soon enough. I own nothing but my words - and if I did have any rights to SGU, I most likely would have said to hell with networks and continued it on anyway. Be that as it may, I do not own SGU. Please Enjoy!**

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><p>Tempers were boiling over at an alarming rate, Greer made note as he checked his weapon out of the armory for the day. They had dropped out of FTL and immediately the Gate had dialed, opening a connection to a planet that Eli told them was green, much like Earth. He had been tapped as part of the team to gate down and check for food, fresh water, and medicinals. His hands checked the weapon over twice, his clip was full, and a round was already chambered ready to go. Beside him Scott went through the same trained motions.<p>

"I'm not gonna have any issue out of you today, am I?" Greer asked, Scott's face melting into a frown as he holstered his 9 mm, adding two additional magazines to their proper pocket on his flak jacket. "Rush and Chloe both are gonna be on this foray, and I'm not too keen on keeping an eye on you the whole damn time." Greer's voice was calm and even.

"We talked. No troubles today." Scott muttered as he slung his rifle to his side. He had spoken his peace with Chloe, and as long as she was true to her word, and they acted at least civilly to one another, as far as he was concerned, it would be a good day. If not, then well, he'd rather not think about what kind of hell this mission off-ship was going to be. The timer had given them 36 hours, but with their ability to stop the ship from jumping now, he was certain if this world held items they needed then they'd be staying long enough to get enough for months.

"There better not be. I'm here to keep stupid Lieutenants like you outta trouble, remember?" Greer's voice was teasing, but there was the unspoken warning there. The Marine Master Sergeant would not be above putting anyone on this team down on their ass and tying them to a tree to wait if there was any trouble. Scott nodded and Greer turned, heading to the gate room and the rest of his "flock" to take care of. Scott, Chloe, Rush, Eli, TJ, and Young amazingly enough. Greer didn't like the idea of the Colonel heading down to the planet surface with them, with Scott and TJ that would leave James in charge while they were gone. Greer had voiced his reservations privately to Young, and then had accepted his orders without further comment.

"We'll be arriving to sunrise where the Gate is located." Rush stated, as Greer pulled up short to look at the console with the older scientist. Greer didn't trust Rush, but he respected Rush's ability to look at situations methodically, and logically – not allowing emotion to color his decision – well, most of the time. Greer had decided long ago, as long as Rush kept his nose in line with what was best for everyone on board, then he'd let the older man do as he pleased. Greer was still waiting for a day to come where Rush would step over the invisible line once again, he would be ready this time.

"Is that a beach?" Greer asked, watching the Kino footage. Rush shifted back and forth, foot to foot, thumb on his chin as he drove the Kino around, looking at the area they'd be immediately placed in once they went through the puddle.

"It would appear so, but there has been no sign of a body of water as of yet. We know one must be there, as there is greenery in the immediate area of the Gate, but no water I can find as of yet. We won't know until we explore further from the Gate whether we've found viable water and food." Rush tapped on the screen, checking over the planet's atmosphere composition once more. It was certainly in line with Earth's, so he could only assume they'd experience no light headedness like the last planet they had stopped at. Rush grew more aware of Greer's presence, looking over at the Master Sergeant. "Is there something else?" He finally asked. Greer smiled at the older man.

"I've already talked to Scott, he gave his word that as long as Chloe kept hers, and things would be civil. Am I gonna have a problem out of you?" Greer finally asked, liking that he could still unnerve the Scot with his closeness. Greer got the distinct feeling that Rush didn't like to be touched, and pressed that advantage as the scientist shuffled foot to foot again.

"Ah, this mystery anger others have been displaying." Rush finally put the question together in his head, Greer was wondering if he would be able to keep his temper under control. Rush smirked, his thumb rubbing the stubble on his cheeks. He would need to trim his beard again soon, and he could only imagine his hair being long enough to pull back in a tail soon enough. "You'll have no issues out of me, as long as you keep Young and Scott in control. As I understand it, they along with Chloe are the only ones of this team that are having issues with their tempers."

"Just got to make sure, you know?" Greer grinned again, heading towards the puzzle. Rush shook his head as he leaned over grabbing his testing kit from where it had been sitting by his feet. Slinging the kit over his shoulder, he was happy that he wasn't forced into wearing fatigues on this outing. He was much more comfortable in his own clothes, and would be able to work faster without the irritation of borrowed clothing. He walked over to stand side by side with Chloe and Eli.

"I don't like that he's coming with us." Chloe stated to no one in particular. Eli frowned as he turned his borrowed hat around on his head, the brim to his back. Chloe had borrowed a pair of boots from someone, Rush noted, but was still wearing that slip of lavender fabric.

"It's not like he'll do anything stupid," Eli started, moving so he could look at both Chloe and Rush at the same time. Rush noted that Eli had been happier than usual lately since the official "break" between Chloe and Scott. "The Colonel and Greer and TJ will be there too, they'll keep him under control if it gets bad, right?" Eli asked, his eyes on Rush.

"One can only assume that the composition of this team is to make sure that we stay as focused as possible on the task at hand. Fresh water, food, and medicinals, anything else is irrelevant and should be ignored. Quit buying into the gossip of the ship, and keep your head on task Eli." Rush frowned, his response lacking its usual bite. Eli looked at him incredulously.

"Who are you, and what have you done with Dr. Rush?" He asked, as Rush smirked. Chloe covered her mouth with her hand, hiding the giggle. Eli smiled, and Rush leaned back, staring at Chloe now.

"This is funny to you?" He asked his smirk still firmly in place. "Should I listen to all this gossip and let it deter me from what is the best for all involved? I really don't think for a moment that it would be so hard to assume that I put weight behind the actions of others, instead of what others say. I believed the both of you would have realized that by now, perhaps I was mistaken to think either of you adult enough to grasp that concept." Eli started sputtering, his hands waiving about defensively, trying to find his next words.

"Dr. Rush is being an ass, Eli. He's teasing us." Chloe's voice was flat, as she knocked her shoulder into Rush's, smiling as she did so. "Either that or he's been replaced by a blue alien who skinned him and is doing a bad job of acting like our acerbic doctor. So what is it Rush, have the little blue men come and replaced you?" Chloe asked, feigning nervousness.

"Hardly." Rush drawled out as he walked the last few feet to the puddle, stepping through. TJ, Young, Greer and Scott had already gone through before them, as per custom. Eli grinned at Chloe, and then followed.

"Hardly is barely an answer." Chloe muttered to herself as she followed behind Eli, the cool wash of the puddle falling over her as she stepped out on the platform into a clearing of trees, the smell of beach and water on the air as the sun started to peak over the horizon, making the foliage look blazing as the light settled over them.

"Beautiful." Rush said beside her, taking a deep breath of the smells. "Simply beautiful." He repeated, his eyes sliding to her, as she stared in open appreciation of the sight. It had been too long since she had seen a proper sunrise, and the sight always left her in stunned silence every time now.

"It's been too long since I've seen a sight like that." Chloe breathed her voice barely a whisper as she fought back at the tears that threatened to fall. Sights like those she was witnessing always had the power to move her to tears. Silently, Rush handed her a well worn handkerchief from his pocket, Chloe appreciating that it smelled of him, and the "soap" that TJ had made for washing hair, she wiped at her eyes as Rush moved away before she could hand him the handkerchief back. The edge of her mouth quirked into a slight smile as she tucked the fabric square into her pocket.

"Well, you can smell beach on the air, and these trees are green. The ground is loamy like you'd fine in the marshes around Florida." Young was talking as he took in the area. Eli was steering a second Kino around, scouting ahead as far as he could before they'd break up into groups to go look for items that would be of use to them on the ship. "Rush, Chloe, TJ and Eli, you all look for food, medicinals, anything else you think would be of use on the ship." Young looked over to where Scott and Greer were crouched, the pair talking about the tracks they had immediately found as they had looked over the clearing. "I think we're going hunting, unless one of you all wants to join us." Young let the offer open.

"Yeah, I don't think so. I like my meat already dead and cooked on a plate." Eli scoffed as he headed to the edge of the clearing, kneeling beside a bush that appeared to be flowing with a pale yellow bud. TJ stepped up behind him, pulling her test kit out to see if the flower bud would be edible, or if it could be put to good use in other ways. Greer shrugged as he slapped Scott's chest with the back of his hand. Young looked at Rush, nodding once, before following the Lieutenant and the Master Sergeant off into the wooded area to hunt down fresh meat.

"If you two are going to be testing the flora and fauna here around the Gate, Chloe and I will see if we can find water nearby. We have our radios." Rush said, jerking his head off in the opposite direction of where TJ and Eli were working, and away from where Young and the others had headed off tracking who knew what. TJ looked over her shoulder and nodded.

"Good idea, Doctor, we'll work through what we can find here in this area, but if you see anything that looks edible, test it and catalogue it. We've got enough time this time to make sure." TJ stood up, smiling as the flower bud they had just tested had trace amounts of salicylic acid, one of the ingredients for aspirin, maybe they'd have something to use for headaches and minor pains again if she could tease enough out of the flower buds. If they found enough she could even start making a poultice for those on board who had run out of their medications for skin irritations as well. TJ's mind was in full gear as she started to test more, directing Eli to pick as many of the yellow buds as he could while she continued checking the plants around them. Eli rolled his eyes, with a mock sigh, as he waved to Rush and Chloe, envying their easier job.

It wasn't that TJ was strict, or even forceful when she asked others to help, Eli rather liked TJ, thinking of the older female as a sister in their rag-tag little family. No, it was the fact that the one person on board he begrudgingly viewed as a mentor, and the girl, no woman, he had eyes for were leaving on their own task. Eli would have rather he and Chloe had gone to find water, and left Rush to help TJ, but the logic was sound. Rush knew what to look for, and how to use the testing gear, where as he and Chloe did not. Splitting up like this would cover more ground and more materials in a shorter amount of time, plus, Rush would be able to handle any residual anger Chloe might display. TJ handed him another small purplish bud, asking him to find more of those as well as he worked on the yellow buds.

"This one seems to be edible." She explained as she showed him the flower. Eli took the example, smelling it. TJ grinned as a smile lit across his face.

"It smells like pepper!" Eli exclaimed as he sniffed it again. "Oh man, that would have been nice to have a couple worlds back with that potato thing we found. Would have greatly improved the taste, or at least masked it a little." TJ nodded as she thought.

"The plant structure is the same as a weed that use to grow all over the place back on Earth. I'm hoping it might be some fore-runner of what we had there, or maybe even the same thing that just evolved out here as well. If it is, it'll have a tangy bite, and in tea it's pretty good for runny noses and allergies. Not to mention what you've already stated, it'll be a welcome addition to some of our food supply."

"TJ this is awesome, I mean, I wish we could find a cheeseburger plant or something like that, but pepper? I can't even imagine how many people are going to be excited that we have pepper-like something after that paste we ate for so long. Seriously, I think that stuff was wallpaper paste." Eli grinned as he continued finding the purple flowers, and yellow buds, keeping them separate as he worked.

"Get a couple of the roots on those too, I'm wondering if they're fibrous enough to maybe pound into mash and make something akin to paper. I'm betting you science and math types would enjoy having paper again." Eli nodded as he worked. Paper would be a welcome addition. They had chalk, and used it on the walls at times, but paper allowed for the collaboration of ideas once again, allowed people to write down thoughts and ideas, keep a record of something other than Kino footage.

"I think Chloe had mentioned something about figuring out paper as well. Maybe she and Rush will find something that will work well too." Eli crouched down, fingers deftly picking plant parts here and there. He eyed a stalk that ran across the ground, and started to follow it, head tilted to the side as he came across a white berry that looked like a strawberry. "Hey TJ?" He asked, separating the stalk from the other underbrush. TJ stood up from where she had been working a few feet over and walked to right behind him, looking at his find.

"It looks like a strawberry, but white." She said, kneeling down beside him and sticking the probe on her test kit into the berry. After a few moments the read –out started to kick back the chemical composition of the fruit. "Well, as long as no one thinks it's a strawberry when they eat it, it's edible, not sure how good it will taste, might be bitter, but it's edible."

"Well, I guess we need to find a sugar plant now, and maybe we could use the wall paste to make muffins." Eli sighed as he started picking the berries along with his other finds. TJ chuckled and moved back to her side of the clearing, intent on finding more.

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><p>Rush bent over a rock outcropping, eyeballing the "rocks" Chloe had insisted had been moving just a moment before. He raised a brow as he waited patiently for them to move again, thinking it might be some form of invertebrate that might be a good source of protein, should the "rock" move again. Several more seconds went by before he sighed, and stood back up, his back starting to protest their trek to the body of salt water that they found some three miles away from the Gate clearing. There were no waves, which meant that this was either a lake, or this planet was tidal locked. The idea of the planet being tidal locked worried him, it meant that no matter how long they stayed here, that it would perpetually be sunrise or sunset, the amount of light they had now would be all the light they got.<p>

"I saw them move, I know I did." Chloe explained as she met his eyes, her mouth set in a frown. "Stop staring at me like that, I know what I saw." She said calmly, as Rush's eyes took on the faint trace of a smile. He sat down on the outcropping, mulling over the thought of the planet being tidal locked. It couldn't be, this salt body mass must be a lake, not an ocean or even a sea, that could account for the lack of waves, especially if it had no feeding source other than rain. Rush stared at the sky. The dual suns were moving across the sky, which meant the planet had rotation, and it appeared to be similar to a standard Earth Day, there were even clouds in the sky.

"Shall I check under your bed to make sure there are no monsters there as well?" He asked, none of the usual snark held in his words. Truly he was impressed by the planet. The few he had been too had been inhospitable, but here, this place was so much like home that he was forgetting that he should keep himself locked away from everyone else, so he wouldn't have to make a decision one day and worry about any emotional attachment.

"I'm telling you they moved." Chloe said again, this time her tone more forceful as she jabbed a finger at the "rock" again. She let out an irritated puff of air as she moved to sit beside him on the outcropping. "They moved." She said again, glaring at him.

"So let's say these rocks do move," he began, humoring her. "What if they're intelligent, are you so set on shrimp scampi you'd kill an intelligent creature for dinner?"

"You yourself said they were possibly an invertebrate; tell me, have you ever encountered an intelligent invertebrate?" She turned slightly, her eyes still holding an accusatory look in them.

"Just because I cannot think of an intelligent invertebrate based on my limited knowledge of biology and ecology, doesn't mean that the creatures we find here are not intelligent." Rush countered as Chloe balled her hands into fists.

"What's with this sudden change in you? Normally you're all "I'm Doctor Nicholas Rush, I was a Professor of Physics and I'm one of the smartest minds of a generation able to make the tough calls" and here lately you're all… tame." She finished, her hands gripping into tighter fists. Rush laughed, his eyes crinkling as he did, the lines of his face telling of a time before in which he smiled more, in which he had laughed more, another time. Chloe unclenched her fists, the anger seeping away.

"Tame. You make me sound like I'm a wild beast, or a raving lunatic which, barring the caffeine and nicotine withdrawals, I am not. It's true, I look past emotions, look past fear to try and make logical, rational decisions, but it's never done in disregard. I calculate the best possible solution to an impossible situation. Sometimes it leads others to think me callous, unfeeling. I don't give a damn about what people think. My purpose, my decisions are made to give everyone the best fighting chance possible to continue living, as comfortable as possible." Rush pushed a hand through his hair, the length starting to bother him as it was hanging in his eyes more often than not now. "I know you thought of me as cruel when we met, it wasn't under the best circumstances, but Chloe, certainly by now you realize I am nothing of the sort."

"Yes," Chloe started, as she turned her eyes back out over the lake, setting her hand down between them, her fingers tapping a staccato beat on the rock as she thought over his words. "I see that better now, after what all has happened, but you're still quiet angry at times." The water was still, a mirror of the sky above, and by all means, salty. That meant they may be able to take buckets of the water and let it condense down into salt crystals. Salt would make the food taste ten times better, and if they could gather enough of it, they could preserve food better, start building up a store, instead of living from planet to planet. She didn't let the feel of his fingers atop her own interrupt her thoughts, instead, she smiled to herself, letting her thumb trace over his.

"You mistake frustration for anger." Rush's voice softened as he stared out over the salt lake as well. They were wasting time, sitting here like this, time that could be better used to find more resources.

"Perhaps." She whispered, as she turned her hand over, so that her palm was flush with his, her fingers curling between his. "You told me, after the alien ship, that everyone was useful…" Chloe trailed off as she felt his thumb start tracing circles along her palm. "That we all belonged on Destiny, do you still believe it?" She asked her eyes fluttering closed as his fingers trailed across her wrist, playing over her pulse point. She was certain he could feel her accelerated heartbeat.

"You are important." Rush answered back, as he continued to move his fingers along her arm, the touch feather light as he felt her lean further into him, her head resting against his shoulder. He turned his own head, taking in a breath of her hair, of the "soap" Tamara had made for their girl's night.

"From what I understand, you risked everyone aboard Destiny for me. That doesn't sound very rational and logical to me." Chloe tilted her head back slightly, feeling the ends of his hair tickle her cheek, the angle allowing her to study the outline of his jaw. "That sounds like an extremely emotional decision."

"Aye, it does, doesn't it?" Rush relaxed some, letting his arm slide around her back, pulling her closer. He bit back the moan as he felt her face nuzzle into his neck, her lips press to his skin. "You'd play with the wild beast?" He asked, his hand kneading up her back, before his fingers slid into her hair, hand cupping the back of her neck.

"Damnit Rush, I've been waiting for you to kiss me since I woke up in the damn infirmary." Chloe muttered against his neck, her hand going to mimic his actions, her fingers tangling in his hair. "Now shut up and kiss me." She demanded, wrenching his head down level with hers.

"As she commands." He whispered against her lips as he drew her lower lip between his own, his teeth worrying the flesh. She was young, he reminded himself, use to the awkward ministrations of younger men, ones who may not have had the experience they should, ones who were hasty, who focused on their own relief than of their partner. He was none of these things. He kept the touch of his lips to hers light, forcing her to lean further into him in her haste, in her want. Chloe pressed on, trying to push the kiss deeper, making a sound of annoyance. Rush grinned against her lips, his other hand sliding over her cheek, holding her at bay to continue his slow torture of her. He darted the tip of his tongue along her reddened lower lip, teasing her to open for him, and as she finally complied the soft petals of her lips parting, he gave her what she wanted, plunging deep into her mouth as he pulled her tight to his chest. Chloe moaned as she moved her tongue against his, her hand sliding from his hair as she fisted his tee-shirt, almost as if she was afraid he'd jerk away as he realized what he was doing. Slowly he broke the kiss, leaving several soft kisses along her lips and cheeks as he finally pulled back, his eyes searching over her face for some sign that she was being true with her words. Chloe tentatively smiled at him, the uncertainty written across her features.

"I don't do anything halfway, Chloe. If this is what you want, then you need to understand what that means." He warned her, his thumb stroking her cheek as he watched her, realizing how incredibly vulnerable he was to her right now. "I don't share, and I can be a very," he pressed a light kiss to her lips again. "Very jealous man." Chloe's eyes widened a moment, before she made a barely unperceivable nod of her head. She had rather thought that would be the case with him, and she melted back into his arms as he took her permission in her action, his hands moving up and down her arms as she turned to look back at the lake, still leaned against him.

"I understand that. You're like that with Destiny as well. You don't like sharing her with anyone else, and you loathe letting other's touch her. You're like that with your damn chess set too. I don't expect that me having other males as friends would be an issue now would it?" She asked as she felt him move behind her, pressing his back to the rock wall and pulling her back against his chest so they could continue watching the horizon in peace. "I'm not going to have to worry about you being jealous that I'm working with other males?"

"I'll take your line of questioning with little offense since your latest interaction with the male species could not look past working relationships, and personal relationships." Chloe cooed softly as his hands kneaded the muscles of her shoulders, Rush taking simple pleasure in being able to touch her, and more so being able to talk to her without interference from someone else.

"So that is a yes I should be worried, or a no, I'll have no such childish issues out of you?" Chloe grinned, looking back over her shoulder at him as he continued to work the stress out of her muscles.

"Need I remind you that I was happily married for several years to a very beautiful violinist? I am not completely inept at all areas of being a human, maybe only those that deal with behavior control and compassion. No wait. Behavior control, I can be compassionate when I so choose to be." Rush moved her hair aside, his lips touching the back of her ear. "I do find it incredibly strange though, that a beautiful genius like you would fall in with such a dastardly old man like me, and so easily I might add." Chloe had been anticipating that response.

"You and I both know that what was done to us on that ship, it runs deeper than we can ever explain to anyone else. You and I have shared nightmares, the fear of being taken again, the helplessness of being held captive like we were. We both know Destiny, in ways that the others will never understand. You're the most undemanding and demanding of me of anyone else on this ship. You know as well as I do, that the moment you saved me from that ship, that this was where we were heading. Tell me I'm lying." Chloe demanded, her arms crossing so that her hands where atop his.

"You're lying." Rush whispered against her ear making her eyes flutter closed. "You're lying because it was in the moment of grief that lead you to try and beat me senseless that I knew. You calmed, and then left, back ramrod straight, knowing I was right. You, Miss Armstrong, you were the first to fight back, which made you irreplaceable the moment you did. Any decision I have made since that moment, any life I had to balance in an impossible equation has been your life. As you noted so eloquently, that thought alone has "tamed" me so to say."

"Are you afraid that I'll grow tired, that I'll be fickle because I'm young?" Chloe laughed, finding this conversation easier than she had thought. "That I'll find someone else because I'll be bored?"

"No. I have faith that you are a highly intelligent young woman who knows what she wants and when. All I had to do was wait one we escaped. You changed during our capture, you matured, grew into adulthood in one shared tragedy. I would say that your time with Scott lead you to come to the same realization." Rush leaned back, letting his eyes close, feeling sunlight on his face. Being on the ship for as long as they had made him appreciate small blessing any more.

"That no matter how long you are willing to wait on someone; sometimes that moment will never come for them. That you see them struggling to keep up, knowing that you are outpacing them by leaps and bounds, and no matter how hard you try, how hard you try to wait, how many times you tell yourself that you can hold on a little longer, give them one more chance, that it's futile in the end and stretching out and being compliant, being apathetic only makes you more and more miserable and disappointed in that person." Chloe pulled her knees to her chest, her arms hugging her legs. "Back then you knew?" She asked then, her mind playing over their conversation so far.

"Maybe not knew that one day I would want you, but I knew you were an irreplaceable part of my life." Rush admitted, still relaxing in the sunshine. "As we spent more time working together on Destiny, went through what we did, as you grew into who you are now, I started to want you. Had I know in the infirmary that you had felt the same then, I would have acted. But, Chloe, I'm nearly twenty years older than you, and have lived a good life, a truly good life. I let Gloria's death, Mandy's death change me into that cold person everyone thinks I am. It helps in keeping others away, helps not to let yet someone else be one of my various obsessions, and make no mistake, the loves of my life are my obsessions. You continue down this path with me, you will be one, more so than you are now. Again, I do nothing halfway."

"You keep saying that as if you want to scare me away." She rounded on him, staring at his upturned face, noting the way the light touched all the valleys there, making him seem even more handsome to her. His life really was etched in the lines of his face, the smiles, the laughing, they were there, and even the displeasure and disappointment of the last few years did little to hide that he was a truly happy person somewhere under there. Maybe not the most moral person, but a happy person somewhere in him.

"I want you to be certain this is what you want. Like I said, I have had my happiness, if I can have that again, I will take it, and I will fight to the death to hold onto it. You've not had that type of happiness yet, I don't believe. I want to make sure that you're certain of the choices you are making, that's all." Rush told her, almost tenderly as he leaned up from where he had reclined back, pressing another soft kiss against her forehead.

"And I trust you'll believe me when I say I've weighed the possibilities in my head, examined them to all conclusions and have made my own decisions?" Rush nodded once, a genuine smile lighting his features, making the lines she had come to adore move into the proper configuration once again. She rose up on her knees, intent on throwing her arms around him and begging him to kiss her like he had again. Movement to their right made her pause, her eyes sliding to the side to make sure of what she was seeing. The "rocks" were moving again, skittering across the rocks with a muscle like appendage. She laughed and then pointed, moving over to look over the edge of their perch, nearly licking her lips in anticipation, her mind telling her they were close enough to clams that she may even have chowder before long. She grinned up at him. "I told you they moved."

"Well I suppose that I owe you an apology Chloe, they do appear," Rush was cut short as the sound of gun fire cracked in the otherwise silent cove they had been loitering in before fire spread throughout his shoulder and chest. He felt light headed, the world seeming to stop all around him as he put a hand to his collar bone, blood seeping out over his fingers. Chloe's face was ashen as she went to catch him as he fell. Yelling and the sounds of a scuffle were heard from behind them. "To move." He finished as he felt his knees go out from under him completely, only Chloe's yoga trained arms holding him barely upright before he vaguely registered he had been shot. Colors started to blur in his field of vision, and he could barely hear Chloe talking at him before she faded out completely, and the dark wave that crashed up through his brain blotted out all.

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><p><strong>Thank you so much to the wonderful CharlotteAshmore for prompting me to write again, love you darlin'.<strong>

**Many many appologies for leaving you on such a unfinished line of thought, with the coming weather Part 2 should be some time relatively soon!**

**This section was penned to Crazy in Love from the 50 Shades of Grey soundtrack - no I will not see the movie, I could barely make it through the books - but this version of Crazy in Love really is awesome.**


	6. Anger Part 2

**Hello my Dearies, here's Part 2 of Anger - Enjoy! And as always, I own nothing of the SGU universe, but if someone would like to gift me a Dr. Rush for my birthday, I would be eternally grateful. I might even let you borrow him on Tuesdays! ;) **

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><p>Young glanced at the ground once again, the tracks they had found in the clearing leading them on a seemingly looping path around the Gate's immediate area. Greer pointed silently as they continued after their quarry, Young differing to the younger man's tracking skills. Silently, Young had mentally shook himself for not bringing Varro along. He was a far better tracker than the three of them together. Young had doubted he'd be able to hold himself accountable, the simmering rage in him much more than he let on to anyone but Tamara. Pulling his canteen from the clip on his belt, Young took a deep drink, happy that they had sufficient water reserves to lighten the forced rationing they had been accustom to before the three years asleep.<p>

"We're too far from the Gate." Scott muttered as he pulled his own canteen, slinging his pack down to the ground, seating himself on a partially fallen tree as he did.

"We're within range still. Where's your sense of adventure?" Greer grinned, taking the opportunity to take a sip from his own canteen. The humidity of the general area was higher than he had felt in some time, keeping him aware that they were near some sort of body of water, perhaps a coast if they were lucky. Greer would rather be sitting next to a lake with a fishing rod in hand, cold beer in the other, than trekking around the forest with two overgrown thirteen year olds.

"Taking a nap somewhere." Scott muttered, stowing his canteen back where it belonged in his pack. He took a strip of fruit jerky, thoughtfully chewing on the bit he had broken off, offering some to Greer and Young. Greer took a snapped off section, popping the tart treat in his mouth, letting it soften some before chewing it like bubblegum. "I don't see how you can eat this stuff without flinching."

"It's food, Lieutenant, it keeps me alive." Greer said with a point of pride in his voice. It wasn't about taste, or about texture for him, as long as whatever he had to eat provided him enough nourishment to stay alive, to keep Park safe – to provide for her, then that's all that mattered to him.

"Yeah, maybe." Scott scowled as he made his way back to his feet, returning his pack to where it belonged. Young nodded to himself as he picked up his gear as well, rolling his head back and forth. It had been a while since he had walked as far as they had with any weight on his back, and he was feeling his age since the ship had awoke.

"Stow it Lieutenant, we've got game to catch." Young ordered, as he nodded to Greer to lead the way.

Greer lead the hunting party, tracking the deer like hoof prints through the loamy earth again. They had made good time, and with his and Scott's hunting experience, they had decided they were tracking a group of around four animals. Greer hoped they were deer like, seeing the prints, and how good a steak would taste roasted over an open flame. Young had been no problem for him so far, but Scott was getting frustrated as the hunt continued.

"I still think that we're getting too far from the Gate." Scott repeated for the tenth time. Greer ignored him as the terrain turned rockier under their feet. The mix of sand and earth becoming more sand and stone as they continued on their trek, Young sighed shaking his head at the young Lieutenant.

"Scott, if I hear one more word out of you today son, I'm going to rip a sleeve off my jacket and gag you. We've been here a grand total of three hours, and you've voiced more complaints in one of those hours than the entire time I've known you. Grow up, and keep focused, otherwise you can head back to the ship and wait for us to be done." Young said none too gently, as Greer smirked back at the two. Greer was certain he could keep the both of them in line when their scouting parties had been broken up, but he was starting to seriously worry he might have to hand cuff the both of them and march them straight back to the Gate. TJ needed to figure out what had everyone on edge as soon as possible, hell, possibly even Camille should the "sickness" that seemed to be effecting everyone was more psychological than physical.

"Both of you quiet down. We're close." Greer said in the calmest voice he could muster as he continued a bit further into the underbrush that was opening up before them to what appeared to be a lake.

Scott moved behind Greer and the Colonel, scanning the immediate area around them, making sure nothing else was tracking the same animals. As he moved to the edge of the rocky outcropping they had come to, Scott narrowed his eyes at the sight in front of him. He had been right all along.

"I told you they moved." Chloe said, sending her "special smile" at Rush. The two looked happy, setting Scott's already short temper to ignite. He had been right all along. She had been sleeping with him before, and was still from the looks of things. Scott felt his fingers twitch, his hand moving to the gun holstered at his side.

"Well I suppose I owe you an apology Chloe," Rush was telling her, his face lit in a smile. Scott felt his blood run cold. '_That stupid bitch. She lied to me_.' His inner voice was telling him, his teeth gritting together so hard he felt like he'd crush his own teeth. His mind was made in an instant. He was going to kill the bastard.

In the distance, Greer could see the group of animals they had been tracking, indeed they were sufficiently deer like, and the sudden thought of steak made him crouch down, bringing his rifle around to take the shot. Young crept up beside him, lowering down to the sandy ground as he also lined up a shot. "I've got the adult on the left." Greer told him, as Young adjusted his aim for what they could only assume to be adults. Greer looked over his shoulder in time to see Scott remove his 9 mm from his side, and squeeze off a shot over a rock outcropping to their left. Young was on his feet in a moment as he heard a female scream. Scott was jumping over the outcropping as Greer came up behind him.

"You shot him!" Chloe was screaming, her top smearing with blood as Rush sagged in her arms. "You shot him!" She screamed again as Scott pulled up closed to the pair, getting ready to shoot again. Greer let his rifle drop behind him on its tether, the firearm falling behind his back as he grabbed Scott from behind, pulling his arms up into a lock so that he would be unable to take another shot. Young was on his radio already, calling for TJ and Eli to make their way to them as soon as possible, before helping Chloe ease Rush down on the rock, showing her how to apply pressure to the wound to keep Rush from bleeding out too fast.

"Stop struggling Scott." Greer hissed in warning as Young stepped over, taking the firearms from Scott, then nodding once. Young tossed the firearms in the sand some distance away from them. As soon as his hands were free, Young's right fist was making contact with the Lieutenant's jaw, his lip pulled back in a snarl.

"Cuff him. Then make sure his ass stays seated while we sort this cluster-fuck out." Young seriously was at the end of his temper, and he was certain that Chloe's would be about explosive after she got over the shock of what had just happened. He returned to Rush's side, noticing the scientist had lost consciousness. A sharp slap to his face roused him some, his eyes opening a crack, before he groaned out in pain. "Come on Rush, gotta stay awake now." Young commanded as he ended up tearing a sleeve off his jacket for an all together entirely different reason.

"Water." Rush groaned out as Young balled the sleeve up, nodding to Chloe to stop pressing on the wound a moment. Chloe rocked back on the heels of her feet, and Young pressed the fabric to the ragged gash that had narrowly missed lungs it appeared. The blood wasn't frothing, and there was no gasping cough that would signify a collapsed lung. Young had gotten a look as he took over keeping pressure on the wound. The shot had been clean, a few centimeters down and in would have been a shot through the heart, as is, Young was certain that the shot had passed clean through the shoulder and out Rush's chest without nicking anything vital. He'd let Tamara make her own assessment as soon as she and Eli arrived.

"Chloe, in Greer's pack, there's a canteen, get it please." Chloe moved to her feet quickly, her eyes brimming over in tears as she went over to where Scott had been backed against the rock wall, and nodded to Greer as she fished around in his pack for the canteen. She barely noticed the blood that was splattered across her face, refusing to look at Scott as she made her way back over to Rush.

"Here." She said listlessly, handing Young the canteen, the top already mostly twisted open as Young took the metal container with his free hand.

"Okay Chloe, help me raise him up a little. He's going to need the fluids." Young let his field training take over. As much as he didn't like Rush, he was part of the crew, and had saved their asses too many times to let the man die now, training keeping his anger in check as it boiled inside. "We need to sit him up, keep fluids in him, and keep pressure on the wound. If it's above his heart it will help in not letting him bleed out." With some effort, the two of them were able to help Rush prop up on the same rock that he and Chloe had been leaning against only minutes ago.

" Up above, in my pack, I have a med kit. Nothing special, just some gauze we can use to try and staunch the bleeding until Tamara gets here." Chloe nodded, and went to climb up the rock face to get the kit. Young took the top off the canteen and held the edge to Rush's lower lip, letting the other man take slow sips. "Easy now. Slow, otherwise you'll be throwing it back up all over that open hole in your chest."

"Ya shoulda seen the other guy." Rush chuckled, the sound fading into another groan of pain.

"Funny Rush, yet another movie like we have in common." Young shook his head.

"Sir. I'm going to radio Eli and have him get the Kino sled before he's too far away from the Gate." Greer said calmly behind them, his eyes still focused on Scott, hand on his rifle once again now that he had Scott in a position that he could keep a better eye on him. He didn't wait for an answer. "Eli." Greer said into his radio.

"We're on our way!" Came the quick reply, Eli's voice shaking.

"TJ needs to keep heading this way. You need to return to Destiny and get the Kino sled." Greer replied, letting go of the button on the radio of his shoulder.

"Already ahead of you, I grabbed it while TJ started that way, I'll be a few minutes behind her." Eli responded, before the radio went silent again. Chloe was sliding back down the rocks as TJ came running into the cove, her pack down on the rock as she quickly set to work.

"Dr. Rush, can you open your eyes for me?" She asked, pen light out, rapidly moving it back and forth, checking the reflexes of his pupils, her thumb gentle as she opened each eye. She nodded at Young to back up some as she cut through Rush's tee-shirts to get at the wound. Chloe vaguely though that Rush would be rather unhappy about that, as she crouched on the balls of her feet between Scott and Greer, and where TJ and Young were working on Rush. She felt numb inside, not even taking in the scene in front of her.

"TJ, would you mind not battering me about like that please." Rush hissed out between clenched teeth, his eyes still refusing to remain open, but obviously aware enough that TJ was able to assess that he wasn't in immediate danger.

"You're awfully calm for being shot doctor." The medic teased back as she worked. The wound was clean, no bullet to pull out of him, and a quick check of his shirt around the wound relieved her even more. The bullet wouldn't have dragged any fabric through it looked like, the edge of the bullet hole in the shirts clean, but not completely ripped, she could account for the entirety of the fabric. She wouldn't have to go fishing around in either side of the wound making sure that she cleaned it out sufficiently.

"Do we have any more of that venom TJ?" Young asked, knowing that to set the bone he suspected was broken and then suture up the wounds that they'd need Rush passed out, or drugged. TJ pressed clean gauze to each side of Rush's shoulder, using strips of fabric they had made from extra coverlets from the ship to tie them in place. TJ took a pair of her scissors from her pack, and used them to tighten her make shift bandages on Rush, hoping that they placed enough pressure so they'd be able to move faster back to the Gate.

"It's been three years since we've used any of it, I can't be certain it's still viable, or even strong enough anymore. I've got maybe three doses of morphine left, saved back for extreme emergencies." TJ looked at Young, letting him make the decision; otherwise she would use one of those doses to do her work.

"Calm is an understatement." Rush coughed, eyes still closed, but incredibly aware of the conversation happening around him. "Don't. I've had worse. Just get me back to Destiny and get me sewn up as fast as humanly possible."

"Rush…" Young cautioned, his eyes setting in a line of rage as he looked back at Scott. The Lieutenant's eyes were murderous, lips curled back in a sneer. "Greer. Take him back to Destiny, and lock him up. I'll decide what to do with him later." Young looked over at Chloe then. "You should head back too." He left no room that his words were an order, not a request.

"No." Chloe said calmly, her eyes never leaving Rush's face.

"No?" Young asked, his voice rising in anger.

"No." Chloe stated again, her face turning to Young now, her face set to be as impassive as possible. Young relented, the blood covering Chloe's face, the tear stains along her cheeks pushed the fight out of him. He couldn't order Chloe to do anything, she wasn't a contractor, wasn't military, just a civilian who had gotten taken along for the ride.

"Fine." Young finally got out as Eli maneuvered the Kino sled into the cove, stepping out of Greer and Scott's way as they headed off in the opposite direction. "Over here Eli." Young waved a bloodied hand as Eli's face drained of color, seeing the amount of blood on the rocks. TJ was finishing up her assessment as Eli dragged the Kino sled over to the rock they were sitting on, holding it in place as Young and TJ helped Rush move onto the floating slab. Eli's eyes turned to the ground, seeing a rifle and side arm lying in the sand.

"I'll just, pick these up." Eli said in a clipped manner, slinging the rifle over his shoulder by its strap, the 9mm side arm he checked the safety on, before sliding it into the pocket of his vest. He bent down then, still trying to figure out what the hell had happened, picking up the lead rope to the sled. Young held his hand out for the rope, and Eli handed it over as he watched Rush wince in pain again. Chloe rose to her feet quickly and went to take Rush's hand, making sure it was his uninjured arm.

"Make sure they get checked into the armory as soon as you arrive on board Eli. And make sure you tell who ever is in there at the time that they are not to be checked back out unless by me." Young pulled the rope lead over his shoulder, setting off in the direction of the Gate, not waiting for an answer.

"How are you staying coherent?" She asked quietly, her fingers weaving with his as they started off towards the Gate, Eli and TJ bringing up the rear of their group. Eli's face still looked like he had seen a ghost, and TJ's lips were set in a grim line. Chloe turned her eyes back to Young's back as they continued on at a good pace.

"Differential equations, specifically, variable-mass systems." Rush breathed through clenched teeth.

"Are you taking special relativity into consideration?" She asked, her hand tightening around his as she picked her way back through the trail they had forged on their way to the cove, Young politely ignoring their conversation.

"Yes, my dear, I am." Rush sighed, feeling her hand in his, a small comfort as he ran over his mental equations over and over. Chloe was smart enough to know what he was working out in his head, but his term of endearment made her feel giddy inside.

"Time variation?" She asked, a wry smile spreading over her lips.

"Apparently you need reminding that I am Doctor Nicholas Rush, I was a Professor of Physics and am one of the smarted minds of a generation." He mimicked back her tone from earlier, his accent more noticeable than usual.

"And I should probably point out that you've been shot, and therefore not taking into account that a bullet does not shed mass as it travels the distance to its target." She smiled for real now, knowing he would be fine as soon as they got back to the ship, and TJ sewed him up. He'd be cranky, even more so when TJ put him on bed rest for a day or two, but her small victory was assured.

"Utterly irreplaceable." Rush muttered as Eli raced head to start dialing up Destiny, having made better time back than what Rush originally thought had been possible. Otherwise he assumed he was losing consciousness between Chloe's questions.

"You can fuss at me later." She quipped back, letting go of his hand as she raced ahead with Eli to make it back to the ship and start getting things ready.

"Don't fuss at her too much." Young said over his shoulder, glad that Eli had thought to bring the sled before starting off towards their location.

"I wouldn't dream of it Colonel." Rush bit out, keeping his normally harsh bite in check. Young didn't need to be poked, whatever immunity Rush and the handful of others had against the explosive angers hadn't extended to Young, and even in his incapacitated state, Rush knew better.

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><p>Inside the Gate room, James stood between the consoles, watching the shimmering puddle as the Kino sled was pulled through. She had called Varro and a few of the other's who had spent time in the infirmary helping TJ to the Gate room as soon as Greer had brought Scott back through. James had ordered all who had seen the Lieutenant lead back in hand cuffs to silence. It would do no good to have gossip spread around the ship until everyone was questioned, and a formal inquisition was set in place. Brody and Volker had nodded silently in acquiescence at the normally cheerful James' command.<p>

"Lieutenant, report." Young ordered as TJ directed her trauma "team" to their individual tasks. Chloe followed after the sled, arms wrapped around her middle as they moved to the infirmary with Rush prone on the sled still.

"I ordered all civilian personnel to quarters until the end of the hour as an emergency security drill. Volker and Brody have been here with me the entire time. Greer is standing guard over the room in which Scott has been remanded to, along with two Privates who know how to keep their mouths shut. The remaining military personnel is taking part in the emergency security drill, making sweeps of the furthest open corridors that are viable." James explained, as she fell in behind Young as they followed the sled to the infirmary.

"Remind me later to suggest your promotion to the General the next time I use the stones. Brilliant idea to keep the gossip mongers at bay." Young admired the quick thinking. With their issues on board right now, confining everyone might cause a bit of resentment, but preparedness drills was something no one could argue with when it came to the continued survivability of the ship's crew. "Wray?" he asked, not sure if he wanted to know the answer.

"Irritated that I interrupted her evaluations of everyone's mental state, but when I explained that you had ordered the drills while we were stopped, she quieted down." James stopped as they entered the infirmary.

"Good job, help Eli take Scott's firearms back down to the Armory, and make sure they get checked in. No one is to touch those weapons until I come to collect them personally." Young made his way to the far side of the infirmary, watching as TJ worked, thankful that Chloe had moved away from the gurney Rush was now laying on.

"Yes Sir." Was James' only reply as she turned from the Infirmary, taking Eli by the arm as they headed off to complete their task.

"Hey I want to stay and make sure Rush is going to be okay!" Eli protested as James continued to pull him along. She shook her head and stopped, smacking Eli lightly upside the back of his head.

"Don't argue. You heard the Colonel's orders. TJ will make sure that everything is done for Rush, but you and I are already straining the space needed for them to work in. Our presence is not needed, nor is it productive. We have other things that need to be done and we're going to do them."

"Chloe is staying."

"That's because Chloe is a big girl and knows when to keep her mouth shut. Grow up Eli. We're all worried, but crowding around gawking isn't helping."

"I know, I know. I wish there was something I could do to help though." Eli sighed, his shoulders slumping.

"Cheer up Eli, there will be something for you to do as soon as they're done patching up Rush."

"And what would that be?" Eli raised a brow at James as they continued on their way to the Armory.

"Keep the bear's attention."

"Oh great. Sacrificed to the greater good."

James and Eli rounded the corner to the Armory, and Scott's weapons where checked in with the orders that they were to remain out of rotation until the Colonel came to pick them up. Eli frowned as James took them and added them to a locked crate, putting the key in an inner pocket as he watched her move.

"Do you think that's wise for you to hold onto the key?"

"Why not? I'm heading straight back to hand the key to the Colonel, and then I'll be heading to the mess to see if some of that tea blend everyone's been muttering about is as bad as they say. I can't imagine it being any worse than some of the stuff we've endured here lately." James explained as they headed back down the same corridor.

"Well for one, you're military, which means if it ever comes under question, everyone will assume you are backing Scott, just because you're both military. Second, you're not exactly the biggest fan of Dr. Rush, and finally, your history might be called into question based on whom Chloe is now currently shacking up with, instead of who she was shacking up with in the past."

"You make Chloe sound like she has no idea what she wants." James pointed out, stopping in the hallway to turn towards him. "Also, give everyone the benefit of the doubt Eli, you're walking back with me, and saw me have the weapons checked in, and take the key. Would it make you feel better if I let you carry the key the last bit of the way?"

"KInda, yeah." Eli blushed, as James dug in her pocket, pulling out the same key she had just deposited there, and pressing it to Eli's outstretched hand.

"I appreciate that you thought this all over, and wanted to make sure that no one's actions could be called into question, but seriously Eli, you should have told me your hesitations before we left the Armory. I've had the key in my jacket for half the ship. A clever person would say that's enough time for me to have secreted the key elsewhere, and handed you another. And even still, I might be accused of that anyway, if someone wants to press a point."

Eli wrapped his hand around the key, feeling it press deeper into his palm. This was the only way he could make sure that James and Chloe, along with Dr. Rush couldn't get a hold on the key. He'd make sure he placed it in the Colonel's hand personally. Young may be many things, but he would make sure that no one would have the opportunity to switch the weapons out, or to tamper with evidence, especially since the way things were sounding, there would be a formal hearing for Scott. Eli frowned again and he and James started walking towards the infirmary once again.

"I don't think that anyone would question my actions in all of this, and I'll make sure that everything is handled as delicately as possible. This whole rage issue has to be figured out soon." He mentioned, as they reached the last turn before the infirmary. He reached out and grabbed James' arm holding her back from turning the corner. "I have some theories on why all this is happening, but I need to ask some questions of those of us not affected, as well as those of us who are. I don't think there's going to be a medical, nor psychological explanation for all this."

"Well what do you want to know?"

"Did you dream while under?" Eli asked, flipping the key in his palm over and over.

"Yeah, for a while actually, vivid dreams I remembered. It was kind of crazy, because these were the first dreams I had that were in color, and that I could remember fine points from, to be honest."

"And, one more thing, when you went into the tube, were you scared, or did you feel nothing, or did you have a pretty positive outlook that we'd make it, and wake up with no issues?"

James frowned, trying to remember how she had felt when she had entered the tube, and the first stirrings of sleep had taken her over. "It was more I had come to terms that if I was never going to wake up out of that tube that at least I'd be among people that I cared for a trusted."

"So not exactly cheery, but not fearful basically." Eli muttered as he flipped the key still. "Thanks James, I'll let you know what I find out." Eli smiled then, heading around the corner to enter the Infirmary to hand the key over. James followed behind, shaking her head as smiled despite herself. Maybe Eli would figure this all out after all.

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><p><strong>I will neither confirm, nor deny any theories on what may be causing the mysterious anger. Part 3 of Anger should be around soon enough, Reviews feed my ego, thus making me work faster! :D :D :D <strong>

**This chapter would have been penned to Runnin' Down A Dream by Tom Petty, had my iTunes not decided to be mean to me (why is everything mean to me tonight!?). You'll notice that my musical tastes run far and wide as this goes along! :3**


	7. Anger Part 3

**Hello my darlings - Part Three as promised. From now on I'll only be updating on Friday/Saturday evenings to allow time for me to continue my violin lessons and yoga practice as needed.**

**Again I do not own SGU - Rush would have won every time if I did! Enjoy!**

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><p>XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX<p>

XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX

**Anger - Part 3**

Chloe paced back in forth in the small alcove of the Infirmary that she and Young occupied, her eyes trained on Rush the entire time. She was worried, more so than she had been in a long time. Young finally reached out and grabbed her hand, stopping her pacing.

"You should go get cleaned up." He said simply, his free hand going to motion at his face. Chloe was still splattered with Rush's blood, and as time wore on, she would begin to feel the fatigue as the adrenaline wore off. "I'll stay here and make sure. Go get a shower and try to rest some. You'll need to be strong to handle him once he wakes up."

Chloe pulled her arm from Young's hold, her shoulders slumping as she drew in on herself. She blew a short puff of air out of her mouth, her hair scattering around her face. She knew Young was right, she was already starting to feel the fatigue set in, as well as the stress of handling Rush once he woke up. The last time he had surgery aboard Destiny hadn't turned out the best, but she also wanted to be there for him when he woke up, just as he had done for her in the past.

"Go on Chloe, take a radio with you, and as soon as he shows signs of waking up, I'll make sure you're the first to know after me." She frowned, and then nodded; taking the radio Young was holding out to her in her hand and admitting defeat.

"Please. I don't want him to wake up alone."

"He won't, I promise."

And with Young's promise, Chloe left the Infirmary, passing James and Eli in the hallway as she rounded the corner.

"Chloe, you need me, you let me know." James told her as she walked by. Chloe let her head nod once, letting James know she had heard her, but she didn't have any energy left for words, and Young's suggestion of a shower sounded pretty good right about now, even if it wasn't a "real" shower.

Chloe didn't want to go back to her own room. Her stuff had been moved back there already, thanks to Camille's delicate touch, something that she'd have to thank the woman for later. She didn't want to be surrounded by the things that reminded her of Matt right now, thinking that possibly would send her off the edge of her already shot nerves. Instead, she made a quick stop in her room to grab the unused coverlet off her bed, her thin jacket and her spare set of yoga pants. Her top might be a loss, but at least she'd have clean pants. Holding the items in her arms, she made her way to Rush's corridor. She knew that they were close to the showers, but far enough away from everyone else that it wouldn't matter.

She came up on Rush's door, feeling like she was invading his privacy, but palmed the door release open, and stepped inside. The room held his scent, strongly, the mix of leather, spice and earth clinging to everything in the room, even his chess set. She ran her fingers over the black rook, taking care not to disturb his current game. White was winning at the moment, but Black would have White in check-mate in three moves. A rather interesting gambit, one that wasn't usually used in chess, if she remembered correctly from what her roommate at Harvard had told her about the game.

Next to the unmade bed were his personal items, his mended glasses, his notebooks and what pencils he had been able to find in his things. He had gone through the Gate with only the items he had with him at the time. His waistcoat hung on a peg on the wall, and it was her only option for a shirt at the moment. Pulling the well-made, well-mended vest off the hook, she dropped her coverlet on the bed, and headed out of Rush's room to the bathrooms, she wanted to be clean, now.

She shed her clothes the moment she entered the room, sure she was going to be alone since no one seemed to be moving around the ship right now, and stepped into the first stall, sighing as the mist started to spray. Eyes closed, Chloe pressed her hands to her face, and sank into a crouch, letting the beading mist fool her into thinking the extra wetness on her cheeks weren't actually tears rolling down her cheeks at an alarming rate.

Chloe was exhausted, and it wasn't even dinner time yet. Everything inside of her screamed that she should be angry, that she should get dressed and then go and beat the crap out of Matt for what he had done. She couldn't find the energy to be angry any more, the seething rage that she had been feeling lately feeling like it had washed out of her in one extremely comfortable morning. She pushed her hands back through her now soaking hair, watching the red tinted mist drain out of the bottom of the stall. She was covered in blood, most of it congealed now into masses that were proving difficult to move from her hair.

Thankful that the mist never got cold, she sat there, letting it cover her over several times, waiting for the red to stop flowing away down the drain. Finally, Chloe felt clean, or as clean as she was going to feel at the moment. The mist had a medicinal smell to it, and it always felt like she had a thin film left on her skin afterwards. Scrubbing her face with her hands one more time, she turned the knob to the off position, and grabbed one of the large squares of fabric they had been using as towels lately, wrapping it around herself as she exited the stall.

Glaring at her bloodied top, she tossed it into the stall, and turned the spray on full blast, letting it soak in the cleaning fluid as she padded over to the mirror, staring at her face. She looked far older than her actual age, she though, pushing her fingers into one cheek, moving the skin around as she did. Her cheeks were finally starting to fall, the lines around her mouth finally forming, and the first traces of lines around her eyes finely etching themselves into her skin. Twenty-eight years old, and already she felt like her body was falling apart on her. Yoga and the clean eating they had done since they had found food on new planets was the only thing not aging her lately, it felt.

Cracking her neck, Chloe pulled on Rush's vest, and then her clean yoga pants, the dirty ones getting tossed in the stall with her lavender top. Sitting on the floor, her back to the nearest wall, she let the items stay in the spray as long as she dared, checking them by cracking the door. Her top would be a little worse for wear, and her other pair of yoga pants could be mended if she could find a sewing kit somewhere, since she had used the last bit of thread from her own a while ago making the little shirt, before…

Chloe blocked the past out, intent on not making herself feel even worse than she did now. She'd pull her coverlet apart, or take another one from an unused room and make herself a new top if she needed to, she resolved, will-power setting in to make sure she didn't overlook the top now, just because it'd have some stains left in it, no matter how long she left it under the spray. Hissing at herself, she grabbed the clothes from the floor of the stall, turning the spray off. She wrung them out as best as she could, and threw them over the door of the stall to hang. She'd let them drip dry for a while, noticing that someone else had left some items over the door of a stall further back.

Grabbing her radio, she clipped it to the edge of Rush's vest, the feel of the fabric rubbing over bare skin comforting, that and having something of his that held his scent relaxed her more. Thinking sleep was the best thing at the moment, she padded barefooted back to Rush's room, closing the door behind her as she crawled into the larger bed. Pulling the covers tight around her shoulders and breathing deeply, she fell into a fitful sleep, seeing him shot over and over in her dreams.

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TJ wiped her forehead with the back of her wrist, glad that Rush's vitals were holding strong, his blood pressure holding steady, and the blood loss having looked worse than it appeared. Varro had helped her clean out both sides of the wound, physically restraining the irritated Scot when he had woken up midway through the procedure. Luckily, it seemed the venom from the one planet, several years back was still viable and had held Rush unconscious as she had finished stitching him up. He was extremely lucky. The bullet hadn't been lodged against any bone, and as far as she could tell, his collar bone would set and heal as long as he kept his arm immobile for a while.

"What's the verdict?" Young asked, as he came to stand on the other side of the gurney Rush slept on now.

"It will be touch and go, but he's fighting hard. He lost a lot of blood, but less than I originally suspected, his blood pressure is holding, and the wound was clean. His collar bone is broken, where the bullet passed through, but his lung and heart escaped unscathed. He would have been coughing when we got there if his lung had collapsed, gasping for air. He was joking and talking the way back to the Gate. My biggest worry is infection. At his age…"

"He's not much older than me, TJ." Young pointed out, pinching the bridge of his nose as the headache started to gnaw at his brain once again.

"Colonel…" TJ cautioned as Young placed a hand on Rush's undamaged shoulder.

"Look, all I'm saying is don't count him down for the count. He's going to pull through this, and things are going to continue for "crazy uncle" Rush." Young frowned, patting Rush's shoulder once more.

"I never asked you," TJ started, watching her former lover. "You think yourself as father to everyone on here don't you?"

"Father, big brother, grandfather, what have you, yes." Young pushed his hands into his pockets. "I'm responsible for every single person aboard this ship. I worry about every single one of you, even Dr. Rush here. He might not be the most likable person aboard, but he's one of us."

"What are you going to do about Scott?" She asked, pulling the blue latex gloves off her hands finally, setting them aside to be disinfected as soon as possible. She gathered her tools from the tray next to the bedside, moving them to the autoclave that had managed to make its way aboard in the initial rush through the Gate from Icarus Base. She was thankful for the tool; at least her metallic tools could be properly decontaminated.

"I haven't decided yet." Young sighed heavily, pulling his hands from his pockets, pulling them down the sides of his face. "I do not believe under normal circumstances that this would happen. As it is, Scott was not in his right mind, what with the issues everyone has been having. Update me on that." He ordered.

"I cannot find anything in anyone's blood that would lead me to believe the anger being displayed is due to a virus, or an infection. There's nothing that I've found so far that would even hint at this being some sort of pathogen, or even a mutated pathogen in the cells."

"Go on."

"There's nothing in Eli, James, Park, Greer, nor Rush's blood that would make me believe in some sort of immunity. Nothing unusual about my blood either, except…"

"Eli will find it. We have the logs, it'll just take time, focus on the present." Young moved to where she leaned against the counter, standing next to her. "Believe in his ability to find the impossible. He's done it before, and he'll do it again, especially now that we have Destiny's massive database to comb through as well."

"I wish I could be so optimistic." TJ chuckled, her hands wringing in front of her.

"That's an order." Young joked, feeling calmer now that Rush was out of immediate danger, and what they were looking at appeared not to be communicable, nor some sort of mystery illness once again.

"Camille could find nothing the last I checked with her as well." TJ continued, breezing over the half-joking order to be optimistic.

"I'm sure I'll get an earful as soon as she finds me." Young nodded, letting his hands grip the edge of the counter top.

"Maybe, or you could just go find her and get it over with before she finds you and backs you into a corner. IOA representative or not, she can be downright scary when she has her mind set on something." TJ paused her thought, watching Young from the edge of her peripheral vision. They hadn't really talked since they had been pulled out of the stasis pods. Hell, from what she could tell, none of them remembered when they actually woke up, just that people started waking up one after another, the doors already opened and the stasis wearing off fast. They were in a new galaxy and life had continued on. TJ had been resigned to remain asleep, should they not make it. A long sleep you never woke from was better than the impending Lou-Gehrig's disease she'd be facing in another seven years, should the time lines from Novus hold true.

"I like my current company better." Young nodded, watching Rush still, the even fall of his chest. The older male's breathing was slow, but it was steady. As much as he hated to admit it, he had become fond of Rush since they had woken up. He wasn't as snappy, nor was he always in a sour mood. Of course, his Tamara hadn't been talkative with him lately, so he had taken to playing chess with Rush whenever they both had a spare moment.

"Don't." TJ muttered, covering her face with her hands, fighting back down the well of tears that constantly threatened to fall around him.

"It's not like that, you've been pretty clear that no matter what we saw of the recordings on Novus, and no matter what happens as we continue on our way, that you've put any chance of an "us" in the past. I'm fine with that Tamara, if that's what you want. You don't scream at me half the time is all. And, well, maybe I'm a foolish old man myself, and hold out hope that maybe one day that will change. We're not getting back to Earth; it's just not going to happen at any point for us here on Destiny. The best we can do is just go on living, as best as possible." Young checked his watch, glad that it still ran. They were still on Earth time as much as they could be, but soon that would change as they no longer had anything but Destiny to tell them what the time was. From what he understood, it would flip them towards a twenty-six hour day, with no real clue as to how to re-organize shifts, sleeping patterns, and what would be considered day, and what would be considered night. He had left Eli, Rush and Chloe to figure that out the last time someone's watch battery finally died.

TJ finally drew her hands down her face, the tears that had been welling up gone now. She felt a bit lighter, some of the things she had dreaded, coming to terms with being on Destiny long term, of never making it back to Earth, of never finding anyone else but the people with her now had started to drift away finally. She was able to breathe again, the breath that she drew in feeling like the first breath in a new life, a small blossom of hope finally blooming in her chest. "Don't wait. I may never be ready for that. Not with the death sentence hanging over my head."

"Damnit TJ. Don't think like that. Whatever you face, we're going to be facing with you. We're not going to leave you alone, and we're sure as hell not going to give up." Young's nostrils flared as he tried to reign in that bit of seething anger once more. It was always there now, always a thrum in the back of his head, a taut thread ready to snap at any provocation. "I won't give up, so if you don't have the courage, or the will to fight, let me fight for you. It's all I know how to do anymore. Fight for those around me no matter what the cost."

TJ sighed, her eyes falling closed as she leaned her head against his shoulder, jumping just a little as she felt his hand cup the side of her face. She didn't run away from the touch, but just stayed where she was, unable to move, unwilling to stop. She had known when she had gone into stasis that she was a dead woman walking, she had no fear of dying, but of how she would die, locked in her own mind, unable to move or even communicate at the end. She couldn't hold the tears back any longer as she felt Young's lips press to her forehead, a kiss of endearment, of guardianship, of deep caring. She had seen him kiss his wife like this once, before the divorce, at some dinner they had to attend, and throughout their affair, he had never kissed her like that. TJ pulled in a gasping breath, unable to stop the flow of tears, the fear of dying, the fear of never getting home, the simple acceptance Young gave her, that she still mattered, the fears of abandonment she had always run from, tears she hadn't yet shed, hadn't yet come to terms with.

"I will fight for you, always." She heard him whisper against her forehead, as TJ finally turned into his arms, sobbing for the first time since she had lost the baby. Tears that she needed to shed, but had been too proud, too busy to let fall. As his arms wrapped around her, Young's hand cradling the back of her head, holding her close, he continued to whisper assurances to her, promising her the galaxy and all beyond for as long as they'd have, no matter what came to pass.

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Eli yawned loudly as he tried to stay awake. Around 4 AM he had come back to the infirmary to relieve Young from where he had sat beside Rush for the past 16 hours. Eli hadn't mentioned to Young that he had overhead the conversation that had been happening at the time, and Young never asked. Eli had slept as much as possible after he and James had handed the key over to Young earlier, but he was already severely lacking in the much needed commodity. He had been running simulations, gathering data, keeping Destiny's flight trajectory steady, and a plethora of other tasks that Rush usually ran during the evening hours, and sometimes well into the next day.

Eli had been under strict orders to contact Young, then Chloe if Rush showed signs of waking up. Varro had woke early as well, coming to keep an eye on them, so TJ could get sleep herself. Eli had to admit, it was nice having Varro around at times, especially when they needed an extra medic, or when they needed a superb tracker, or someone to butcher a fresh kill properly, even if the animal's physiology was unknown at the time.

For a while, Eli had talked to Rush, knowing the doctor was asleep, or in really deep sleep due to the venom they used to keep him knocked out while they had worked on him, everyone knew he needed more of it, often turning very snappy at everyone when he was on a thirty-six hour bender with no rest. Eli grinned at the thought, reminding Rush that he wasn't going to be allowed to do that until he healed properly. After some time, Eli had fallen silent, watching Varro work the skin of an animal they had killed a few of on the last world before the one they were currently orbiting, Destiny's internal FTL jump clock disabled until those of the crew not having anger issues could Gate back down and continue gathering valuable resources.

Varro sat, across the room, his legs crossed as he folded the dried animal hide over and over again, twisting it this way and that as the skin worked into suppleness. Eli had asked at one point, the reason why Varro was working the skins the way he was. Varro's response had simply been that he needed material to patch his pants and boots. Eli had given some thought to the process afterwards. They usually only killed a few animals that held non-toxic meat while they were on a planet, but they had been accumulating quite a store of skins, furs, and some sort of wool like substance along the way. If Varro had the knowledge to work leather, then they may be able to start making new clothes, or at least patching up torn knees and elbows of the most worn uniforms and outfits.

Eli patted Rush's hand once more, turning back to the laptop open on his lap, studying the Ancient text displayed on screen. He had already edited as many Kino videos as he dared, and had done the early morning diagnostics on the shift until Volker had taken over in the control room for the early morning shift. That had left Eli time to study, and while studying, the perfect opportunity to examine the information he had been able to collect from James. Eli was convinced that they were all still in stasis, that their current shared state of being was another simulation Destiny was running to figure out who to wake up first, who was safe to pull from the dream state, and who would need more time. He and James had both dreamed while they were "asleep". Eli was fairly convinced that they were all still asleep; he just had to find the proof of it.

Rush had told him a little of what had happened when he had sat in the chair, trying to break the Master Code. The answer he needed had been slapping him in the face the whole time and Rush just had to realize it before he had been able to leave the chair of his own accord. Eli needed the proof that Destiny was testing them all before waking them, but he had yet to find any recurrent pattern like Rush had told him.

If they were all still asleep, still trapped in stasis, then the anger was explainable. What Eli was counting on was that those who went into stasis accepting the fact that they were going to have to stay on Destiny, for the long term, or who had decided to make long term plans while they slept, or right as they fell asleep, were the ones not affected. Rush was easy to figure out – the man wanted to stay aboard Destiny and finish the mission. James had told him that she had been ambivalent to the idea of waking up, accepting the fact she might not. Park couldn't return to Earth – it would be decades until they could repair her eyes there, aboard Destiny, with the database, along with the information gathered from Novus, well, there might be a way to heal her in there. Greer would stay because of Park, of that Eli was certain. Which left TJ and figuring out what she had been thinking as she had fallen asleep, or whether she had dreamed the whole time as well.

It was the only theory he had at the moment, and the proof was being elusive. Eli knew that his mother would fight, but had given up the hope of returning home to Earth. The stones were enough for him. Losing Ginn had hurt, but that had given him some focus that Destiny was as much his mission as it was Rush's. The possibility of returning home at some point was rapidly becoming uncalculatable, even for him. Eli looked up, his eyes training over to Varro.

"Hey, you mind answering a question for me?" He asked, not bothering to whisper. Rush was still out cold.

Varro looked up from the work he had been doing with his hands. "Sure, it's time for me to check his vitals anyway." Varro set the leather piece aside, and grabbed the cuff, meter, and stethoscope from where they sat on the counter behind him. Grabbing the chart TJ had for Rush, he walked over, fitting the cuff on Rush's uninjured arm, taking the measurement quickly, before noting the numbers in the proper field of the chart. Eli stayed silent as Varro listened, knowing even TJ occasionally had trouble when others were talking and watching the meter for the "tick" it made with each heart beat, hearing the absolute first, and absolute last time it sounded in the scope, giving the accurate reading. Once Varro was done taking Rush's pulse as well, and shoving an older type mercury thermometer under Rush's tongue and waiting, Eli asked his question.

"What were you thinking about when you entered the stasis pod?" He asked, as he watched Varro's back stiffen. He noted down Rush's temperature in the chart, before peeling back the compress over his stitches, looking for signs of skin fever and infection. After a moment, satisfied that no infection had set in yet, he pressed the compress back into place, careful not to rock the reset collar bone too much.

"How afraid I was that the tube I was allowing myself to be shepherded into was going to be my coffin." He finally answered, noting in the chart once more before flipping the metal folder closed and taking the tools back to the counter, setting the thermometer in the pile of items to be disinfected as soon as possible, the stainless steel tub getting overly full from their emergency yesterday. "That I wasn't ever going to wake up again."

Eli nodded, thinking this over. Fear, was that what was causing the anger? Varro, Young and the rest of the military save for Scott had been adept at controlling their fear, hiding it in battle, especially some of the more hardened members of each branch with them. "Did you dream any?" Eli asked, mulling over the thoughts in his head.

"No. I fell asleep, and when I woke it was like I had just stepped into the pod. That's a second question, you only asked for one." Varro quipped at him, as he sat back down to the floor, his hands returning to working the leather once again.

Eli grinned and nodded. "Yeah it was, I guess. Thanks Varro."

"Why do you ask?" Varro looked up, his hands still moving, but his gaze holding Eli's.

"Working out a theory, that's all."

"And do you care to share any of this theory?" Varro asked, hands in constant motion still.

"I don't think we're really awake." Eli finally said, patting Rush's hand again, wishing the doctor was awake enough to include him in this discussion. "I think that we're all in a shared simulation while still being frozen in cryo. We understand little to nothing about the cryo process, or if it's even possible for us to be awake yet. Time seems to have passed normally, but there are small inconsistencies."

"Like what?" Varros asked, putting the leather aside and coming to stand on the other side of the gurney. "As far as I can tell, I wake up in the morning, or what we call morning this far out in the black. I have normal bodily functions, I feel fatigue and hunger, I sleep and I dream. By all means, I perceive myself to be functioning normally, not some dream state still."

Eli shrugged, closing his laptop and the scrolling of the Ancient text he had been looking at before. "There's the matter of everyone being angry – angrier than any of us should be after waking up and having plenty of food and water and other materials pretty much presented to us on a silver platter. Planet after planet we've found exactly what we've needed. We have reserves for once, which is something we've never experienced before. The venom that should by all means be over three years old still worked to sedate Rush, we have no idea what side effects, nor harm that could come to him by using it, but he seems to be recovering and healing just fine. And other things, lapses in the Kino recordings, and new data in Destiny's data banks that wasn't there before. That and the creepy feeling that I'm being watched, all the time, like someone is just beside me, but I can't see them. I assume it might be Ginn, she's in the computer after all, if we're in some sort of dream state that allows us to believe we're conscious while we travel, then she would be able to interact with us, even though she and Dr. Perry are in quarantine. It just doesn't add up properly."

Varro folded his arms across his chest, thinking over the verbal spew that Eli had just put forth. "If that were true, then how did Rush feel pain?"

"That's just it! From what I understand, the uploading of consciousness to Destiny's data banks would be easy, if the ship didn't have to run everything else, except keeping us frozen. If we're in the computer banks, we can run around in what we would perceive to be the real world because it would feel like the real world to us. Perception is reality, especially when you're really just running around in one shared brain." Eli frowned, keeping the last bit of his reasoning to himself until he could talk to Rush. Eli was scared of the implications, and needed Rush to tell him immediately that it wasn't possible before Eli would breathe the thought to another person. Eli watched as Varro nodded to himself, his attention going to Rush's face.

"Better get on the radio, it looks like he might be waking up."

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><p><strong>Well my dearies, that's it for this part! I promise Rush will be back in full force in the Resolution of the Anger chapters next week. Reviews make me plot harder! Thank you to all the wonderful reviews lately, I love you all; CharlotteAshmore, badkidoh, Anawey and my Guest reviewer have my special thanks. Let me know what you think! See you all next Friday! :3<strong>


	8. Anger - Resolution

**Hello Dearies, thank you so much for the wonderful reviews last week, they made me happy! Bound in snow once again! Smut-ish (I'd say pg13-ish)like content within, so if you don't like that, skip over most the last section to the last three paragraphs, and as promised, Rush is back - Enjoy!**

**I still do not own the rights to SGU - Like I've said in the past, Rush would have won every time! :) **

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><p>Chloe ran as fast as she could, the radio having woke her in seconds. She hadn't even bothered with shoes, regretting the decision as her bare feet slapped on the occasional grate, she didn't much care anymore. Rush was waking up and she was going to be there to greet him no matter what. She rounded the last corner and slowed to a walk, muscling her way into the infirmary around Varro to go to Rush's side. Indeed he was finally waking up, his good hand rubbing the sides of his face trying to stir the traces of sleep and the gritty feeling of sleep dust from his eyes.<p>

His shoulder was white hot pain, more so than he had ever felt before, as if something had stabbed him with the force of a charging rhinoceros. Rush chuckled darkly at the thought, seeing himself failing about on the massive horn, arms and legs searching for purchase to free himself. He had been shot, he remembered, he and Chloe had been talking, had been collecting data and what might have been food, and the pain that had lanced through him had sent him to his knees. Chloe had been screaming, Greer had been there too. "Water." He breathed, feeling the vague sense of déjà vu. A feminine hand pressed into his hand, fingers lacing between his as he felt his head lifted and a canteen placed at the edge of his lower lip. Cool liquid coursed down his sand-paper dry throat, and finally he was able to push past the grogginess. Young was fitting a lid back on a canteen, Chloe was holding his hand on his other side, her thumb drawing circles over his knuckles.

"Either I've died, and took you both with me, or an apparent like of the movie Fargo has garnered me a bit of grace in the eyes of the bastard who tries to beat me in chess every other day." Rush's lips curled into an easy smile, as Chloe let out a relieved breath.

"We did almost lose our crazy uncle." Young said, setting the canteen back on the bed side stand. "But it appears you're almost as tenacious in your will to live as you are in trying to overthrow me any time you get an inkling to stir shit. You know, if you want to stir shit around that bad, I could put you on septic duty for a while. I'm pretty sure that'd cure you of that need." Young face was impassive as he spoke, trying to keep the fondness he had gradually found for Rush locked up.

"Bloody hell you're as nasty as I remember." Rush groaned as he tried to push himself into a sitting position. Chloe's free hand pressed against his good shoulder, returning him to his previous prone position.

"No. You are going to stay in this bed until TJ says otherwise. And if the Colonel won't order you to do so, I will." Chloe tightened her fingers around his, as he squeezed her hand back weakly.

"And I do order it. Bed rest until we can figure out a way to tie your arm securely enough to allow your collar bone to set and mend properly. We're working on that now, but until then, you're to remain here, immobile, and don't make me bring an armed guard in here to make sure you comply." Young nodded to Chloe then, grabbing his radio from the table. "I'll be back later to check up on the both of you. Follow that order, Rush, or I will send Greer in here."

"Bring the set with you when you come back, we have a game to finish." Rush called after Young's retreating form. If he wasn't to be allowed on his feet, the least he could do would be to beat the Colonel in chess once again. He turned his face to Chloe then, the easy smile returning to his face.

"How are you feeling?" She asked, her hand cupping the side of his cheek, thumb working over his beard. Rush noted how tired she looked, the fear and worry behind her eyes.

"Better now that you're here petting me." He joked, leaning his face into her touch. Such a simple thing, the touch of a beautiful, intelligent woman; he wouldn't even need a sling for his arm, as long as she kept touching him and looking at him with genuine feelings towards him, he'd do whatever she asked. "What did I miss, anything too exciting to leave unsaid?" Rush didn't know what had happened while he had been out. He hoped that the Lieutenant hadn't been ejected out of an airlock, what with the rash behavior that had been happening lately. Chloe pulled her hand from his; pulling the chair over closer to the bed so she could sit with him. Folding her legs Indian style, she took his hand again, nodding.

"Scott is still locked up." She began, Rush noticing that she was no longer calling him Matt. "TJ was able to patch you up pretty well, and Varro watched over you during the early hours. Eli was here, talking to you and running all sorts of diagnostics while you slept. He wants to talk to you as soon as possible, but Young ordered him to go get some sleep since he had been up most of the night. I promised him I'd tell you as soon as you were coherent enough to listen." She smiled sadly up to him, as she noticed he was looking at her with a questioning look on his face. "What?"

"You're wearing my waistcoat." He stated, reaching his good hand down to grab the zip along the scandalously slow vee. She was much smaller than him, and the scrap of fabric was doing little to cover her properly, the zip undone now, hovering around her navel, he could see the swell of her breasts better, his eyes roaming appreciatively over the creamy white skin, his own skin so much darker than her own. Chloe grabbed at his hand, trying to work the zipper back into place, Rush's smile spreading further at her show of modesty.

"It's all I had other than my dress and suit jacket, and neither of those are conducive to sleep. Plus it smelled like you, which helped me fall asleep." She explained, feeling a blush spread across her cheeks, her eyes dropped to their hands at the sinfully hungry look he had in his eyes.

"You'll eventually have to give that back you know, until I can figure out a way to mend my shirts. I'm pretty sure they were cut or ripped at some point." Rush took a deep breath, willing himself back under control. She hadn't told him to stop, but had restrained him. As comfortable as they were with one another right now, that would take time, time he would give her no matter how long it may be.

"I'll figure out a way to mend them." Chloe muttered, holding his hand in hers, fingers drawing patterns over his skin once more.

"How bad has it gotten?" He asked, moving a little to relieve the soreness in his shoulder, he felt the snapped collar bone pinch muscle and hissed as he gave up the idea of moving. That settled that, he would be unable to move until they bound his arm to his chest and helped him up. As frustrated as he was to be trapped in one place, the need to stay still and heal would win out for a little while longer.

"Nowhere near as bad as what we witnessed down planet side. Scott seems to be accelerating in his anger at an alarming rate. Everyone else is settling down some, but the underlying rage is still there in most. Young as much as anyone else, he's been snappy all morning." Chloe finally met his eyes again, the fear gone, but the worry still evident.

"And what about you?" Rush pressed, the feel of her feather light touches along the sides of his fingers, the tips, across each knuckle soothing. Soothing enough to keep him where he was, even if everything was telling him he needed to be up and on his feet as soon as possible.

"Better. Angry still, a bit at least, but not like before, not the constant need to hit something, or to break something. Of course, I'm wondering if I can be explained as just being overly emotional and crazed due to what all has happened up to this point. I mean, I've had it rough, others have had it worse, but I'm not built to handle all this very well." A sad smile worked over her features as she felt his fingers lace back between her own.

"You're stronger than you think you are; just keep that in mind, would ya?" He nodded to her as she finally gave a small nod of agreement. Chloe stared at his lips, unconsciously darting her tongue over her lower lip in anticipation of what might be their second kiss, but the guilt of lusting after his kiss while he was still recovering made her drop her eyes to their interlocked hands. The low rumble of his chuckle rolled out of him as he pushed himself up to his side as best he could, legs slipping from the gurney so he had use of his free hand. Pain shot through his nerves, but he knew he wanted to feel her lips against his as much as she wanted to be kissed.

"Damnit, Rush, you need to stay in bed..." Chloe went to push at his good shoulder, as his good arm wrapped around her waist, pulling her between his legs, so that he could wrap her in his arm, could keep her from bolting, or smacking him, whichever seemed to take her fancy at the time.

Rush's eyes, half lidded slid appreciatively over the vee of his waistcoat on her small frame, the brush with death, yet again, giving him the want to be close to another person. Good hand lightly gripping her jaw, Rush turned her face up to his as his lips pressed to hers, knowing that the trauma of the day prior was catching up with the both of them. "As she commands…" he muttered softly, taking her lower lip between his, teeth starting to worry the sensitive skin.

Chloe melted against him, unsure of where to put her hands, not wanting to touch his wounded shoulder, and unsure of if he liked to be touched at all, her certainly had given no indication of minding touching her. She worried as she felt teeth score along her bottom lip, felt the blood rush through her abdomen, pooling in neglected areas. Scott hadn't touched her once they woke, and taking all into consideration, this was the first time she felt aroused in over three years. She rested her hands on the tops of his thighs, happy that the action solicited a deep rumble from him again, this time not so humorous, more carnal; twisting her insides again. She kneaded her fingers across his thighs, alternating between light circling touches and digging her nails into the fabric of his jeans.

Rush tightened his grip on her jaw as her mouth opened in silent need, his tongue sweeping into her mouth, fighting against her own tongue. He felt as she hollowed her cheeks, sucking on the muscle in a scandalous way. He released her jaw, hand fisting in her hair as he pulled her to a better angle to continue ravaging her mouth, all sense leaving him as one of her hands slid over his cock, barely touching him before he felt nails dig into his hips once more, felt as she pushed her own hips closer to his, awkwardly avoiding his arm. If it wasn't for his damned arm he would have flipped her over on the gurney already, thoughts of hearing her lustily scream his name as he lapped against her soaking center making him consider doing it anyway. Wouldn't that give poor TJ a fright when she came in to check up on him?

Knowing they'd be discovered if they continued, and thinking it better for them to continue at a later time, Rush slid his hand to the back of her neck, down the vertebrae of her spine, finally stopping at the small of her back. Reluctantly he slowed the kiss, tracing her lips one more time before he finally pressed several tender kisses to her lips, her cheeks, and finally her forehead. Trying to calm himself, he leaned his cheek on the top of her head, holding her close as he willed himself to calm. Chloe let out a small mewling noise as his lips finally left her skin. "Shhh, dear one, shh." He comforted her. "You and I both know if this continues it will only leave us in a more dire state than if we stop now."

Chloe slid a hand over his heart, feeling the rapid beat there, knew that the ceasing of their ardor affected him as much as it did her. She stayed silent for a time, breathing in for several counts before finally letting her air out, focusing her breathing much like she did in her yoga practice. Soon she found her level of inner peace returning, the fire that had been threatening to have her pushing him back against the bed and riding him regardless of who dared enter starting to abate. As their breathing returned to a mutually calm level, she finally looked up to him, seeing the disappointment in those brown orbs.

"Okay." Chloe strangled out, knowing that this couldn't continue much longer before she would need to feel him again. "Okay…" she repeated, before finally pulling her lower lip into her mouth, tasting his kiss there still. "What do you need me to do now?" She asked, helping him lay back down, before straightening the blanket that had been draped over him earlier.

"Now, I think it's time to have a talk with Eli before we run into anything else that tries to kill us." Rush grinned at her, a playful lit in his voice as the lines around his eyes crinkled.

"I beg to differ; it was only you this time." She pointed a finger at his chest, poking him once. Rush mockingly made a groan of pain, looking wounded that she would poke him.

"Oh, come off it sweetheart." Rush hissed playfully at her, letting a bit of his usual bite seep into his tone. Chloe smiled then, her head dropping as she felt some relief. If he had kept up with the humor act, she would have begun to worry about his sanity. As it was, she was beginning to understand that whatever peace he had made planet side was there to stay, and quite possibly the acerbic attitude with them all had just been to keep them at arm's length, to keep them out of the sphere of his concern, to keep them from being so important to him that he couldn't make the decisions that had to be made when in regards to everyone's welfare.

Absent-mindedly, she wondered when that had taken place. The realization that there were those on the ship now that he cared about, that he had endangered to save her, that he'd endanger again if it came between the people he cared about and certain death hit her with force. After the chair, after he had broken the Master Code, he had changed, they all had in some ways, but him most of all. Wide eyed she stared at him, the internal debate of asking him playing across her features.

"Sometime today, Miss Armstrong, I'm not getting any younger." He quipped at her, the full force of his tone waking her out of her thoughts.

"And now I know you're awake enough to talk to Eli." Chloe turned , squeezing his hand one more time before going to find the only other male on the ship she could trust now.

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His arm finally bound in place thanks to TJ, Rush listened to Eli as he set out his theory and his reasoning. Rush frowned, his good hand gripping into a fist as he weighed over the implications. If Eli was right, then this whole ordeal was a shared dream and worse yet, when they woke, they might not remember any of it. He might not remember Chloe, or how he wanted her as much as she did now. Worse yet, she might not remember that Scott was a pretentious prick would didn't deserve her and fall right back into being his bedmate.

"But we perceive this as reality right now. As much as I'd like to say you might have solved it Eli, I think there are some seriously biased conjectures in your reasoning." Rush pinched the bridge of his nose as he thought, sure, there were discrepancies, people acting out of their normal character, and even his apparent lack of his baseline disgust for most everyone, but Rush knew it wasn't possible, they had to all be awake, otherwise they had a serious issue, one that he didn't have an immediate idea of how to solve.

"There's something else." Eli rubbed his temples, his head apparently hurting as much as Rush's did from the looks of things. Letting his free arm fall back to his side, Rush muttered under his breath as he tried to get comfortable again, he was sure Eli was about to confirm his latest fear, and unfortunately, a secret he hadn't told anyone before stepping into his pod. "I don't remember how I fixed the stasis pod, or even going into one. I don't remember but for a day or two at most being alone on the ship before I miraculously "woke" up with everyone else, or even how I got out of the pod. I woke up in my messy room, laptop on my chest, like I had been editing Kino footage or something."

"Ah."

"I think I might have sat in the chair."

"Oh."

"That's what I was afraid of." Eli sighed as he leaned over, holding his head in his hands, trying to reason it all out. "If I sat in the chair, then my body is dead, there's no way it would have survived without cryo like everyone else." The hope Eli had been holding out that Rush would tell him his theory was utterly and inconceivably half-witted and idiotic broke into despair.

"Franklin disappeared after the room froze. If we are still under stasis, you could possibly be frozen in the chair interface room." Rush countered, hoping he wouldn't have to outright explain everything. At least Chloe had left them alone to talk, having decided she was going to try and mend at least his tee-shirt for now, so he'd have something to wear other than a flak jacket.

"Need I point out the bad part of that idea – Franklin disappeared!" Eli was beside himself now. Rush took a deep breath before continuing.

"I believe Franklin uploaded himself via the neural interface, because he knew he'd be useless in his body, he was in a nearly catatonic state, at several points unable to even feed himself. It's the only explanation I have of what happened. That or he Ascended, either way not an entirely bad thing, you'd be a being of pure energy, the first of the humans to accomplish such that we could confirm."

"Always looking on the bright side, aren't you?"

"Well it bloody beats being upset about it." Rush snapped, his usual bite in full force. "Either way you're alive if your theory is correct, which means that if you can wake me up at the right time, I can get to the interface room and wake you up, or at least give you reason to not allow yourself to be uploaded into Destiny without the intent of returning to your body eventually. If you Ascended, then well we'll deal with that when the time comes. If we're to figure this out, you need to start looking for patterns. If we're in the interface, then there will be a pattern, a clue to solve the puzzle that one of us is dreaming."

"One of us?" Eli asked, a look of confusion passing over his face.

"You don't really believe I intended to let you figure out the extra pod on your own do you?" Rush scowled, feeling a bit of frustration at how dense the boy could be at times. "I wrote a program into the stasis pods. If, the last pod does not activate two days after my pod activated, it would wake me out of it to help you figure it out. Which means if we didn't have a workable answer, one of us would have sat in the chair to try and find the answer. Which means one of us is working on the answer right now. We just have to figure out which of us it is."

"That's really…psychotic and brilliant at the same time." Eli grinned, nodding his head at the logic. "And if that's the case, then one of us is a simulation, helping the other even if we aren't plugged in, by keeping an eye on the readings. There's only one problem." Eli's grin faded quickly.

"What's that?"

"What if who is on the outside can't bring the other out of the chair?"

"Then one of us is most definitely going to die." Rush breathed, pinching his nose with his free hand.

"That would be an issue." Eli sat back in his chair, scrubbing his hair as he thought. "I've not noticed any patterns recently, nothing repeating like you had told me about when you went in for the Master Code."

"You wouldn't notice them without help. Daniel and Gloria were in mine helping me, I believe Destiny uses memories to help you figure out what it is you're looking for. I was able to complete sentences, and even know things before they happened in mine. I only noticed the discrepancies what might have been just a few minutes before I woke up from the chair."

Eli chewed over this additional information. "So if I was in the chair, trying to figure this all out, I would want you and Chloe to be working with me, because obviously Chloe has the know-how to figure out the jumps, to do the math in her head faster than we do. And you, well that should be obvious."

"As well it should be. And the patterns are fairly obvious once you had the epiphany that the answer has been staring you in the face the whole time. The number forty-six was everywhere for me, dates, time, even my damn house number changed, but you get lost in trying to see the actual answer, trying to figure it out that you don't even realize it's been lit like neon the entire time."

"So what if we're asking the wrong question, what if it's not how to fix the pod, but how can one of us survive the three year trip with relatively no oxygen, no power, and no food?"

"It's not entirely out of the question, as long as you had enough water, you can go several days without food at a time, oxygen would be the main issue, on Earth I would say a medically induced coma and lowered core body temperature would be enough to keep a person alive for three years, but that begs the question of how do you keep that persona alive without a feeding tube and someone there administering the food slush at certain periods of time?" Rush rubbed his beard, as he thought. "The plants in the hydroponics lab, we believed would be enough to keep us in oxygen for at least three to four days when we mutinied, if one person was in the lab, and planted all of our remaining seeds, everything we had, and ate sparingly on the dried rations, and it might be possible. You'd have to figure out a way to pump water in from the reserve tanks, and I hate to say it, but bodily functions would have to be recycled. Either fertilizer for the plants, and then distilled water..." Rush trailed off, gears in his brain working.

"Using Brody's still." Eli finished. "One thousand ninety-five days in one small room, with just a bunch of plants, and a constant shit smell from your own waste. Sounds lovely." Eli sighed as he slumped in the chair. "Would the two weeks of oxygen inside the areas of Destiny be enough time to rig up the water pump, and make some sort of workable commode, move the still and rations and enough blankets to keep warm, I have to imagine that it would eventually get really cold in there."

"When we came aboard Destiny, it was still warm, even though the power reserves were at a minimum. Or at least warm enough that we didn't immediately freeze to death. But three years of just floating, on barely enough power to run the cryo, let alone have any sort of heating to that area." Rush continued to turn the problem over in his mind, trying to figure out if he was himself, or just a figment of Eli's brain as he sat in the chair. "We need to look at a map of the ship and figure out which room would be far enough inside the ship to insulate the person from minus two hundred degrees Fahrenheit on average at least. We could even stack some of the crates around the room to help make a buffer, it would be cold once we found the place, but not cold enough neither to kill the plants, nor to be completely uncomfortable with the right amount of blankets and the likes." Rush was calculating the odds in his head, and it was still an incredibly small number; there were too many variables at play that he couldn't take into account. No, the answer had to be to fix the pod, not figuring out a way to survive outside of it.

"As soon as Tamara lets me leave the infirmary, I'll work on the power flow issue on the pod once more, maybe I can figure out a way to solve it, if, as you say, one of us is in the chair and we're just dreaming this right now. Jesus, let it be me in the chair, I don't want you to have to live out your worst fears like I did." Eli stared at Rush for a moment, his brow furrowed in concentration.

"Your wife."

"Aye. And it was no less painful the second time around."

"I'm sorry," Eli started, looking at his hands as he tried to fathom the idea. He was having trouble imagining his father leaving again, of his mom's diagnosis once again. He wasn't ready to live that again. "It has to be you; this isn't my worst fear, by a long shot."

"I believe you're probably correct." Rush pinched the bridge of his nose again, wondering just when having to decide which one of them would have to die had become his worst fear.

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"No, you're wrong." Chloe stated simply, hating the idea of this being a dream, a shared dream, or that she was some construct of Rush's brain. He was wrong, she was living, breathing, solid, she had thoughts of her own, and she had the capability to reason.

"I can see what you're thinking, dear one." He said quietly, his thumb stroking over her knuckles as she sat beside them in his rooms.

"That you're out of your damn mind?!" She asked, refusing to look at him. "I am not a dream. I am here, I am living, and I am not some figment of your imagination placed before you by Destiny to figure out a problem. We both know Destiny would give you someone brighter than me to help you with this." Chloe could feel the tears welling up, she was real, damnit, and this wasn't some simulation. "She would have given you Dr. Perry, not me." She added trying not to feel bitter resentment inside.

"I agree with you on that point, but if Eli's theory is correct, then either I am a figment of his imagination, or you are a figment of mine. It's just a theory, the best one we have at the moment. He and I are both trying to imagine everyone being in better moods, of acting more rationally, with more logic. If one of us is in the chair, then we should be able to control the actions of others around us, we just need to become aware of which of us is in the chair to influence the simulation." He tried to soothe over her comment on Amanda, feeling a delicate touch was needed there, knowing that he had to keep to himself that no matter how happy he had been that Chloe had been able to save Amanda to the ship, that when he had hugged her close in Chloe's body, that he relished the chance to hold her close. Perhaps Amanda had been right about her programming of their shared simulation, perhaps he hadn't really loved her at the time, just the idea of her. The idea of someone wanting him; wanting him enough to actively show it.

"Shut up, and stop acting like this is no big deal." She ordered, standing up and pacing back and forth from where he sat on the edge of his oversized bed. "What if neither of you are in the chair, what if someone else is there? And for that matter how are the two of you so damn certain that we didn't make it across the gap alive and this is just some hallucination from a fruit or a berry we picked up from one of the worlds?" There had to be a better explanation of what was happening to them, something biologic, or pathogenic in nature. Sadly, if that had been the case, TJ would have been able to find some cause for the issues. Chloe wished suddenly that the blue aliens had given her more knowledge than just flipping the math switch in her head. She stopped by the chess board and made her next move, putting her bishop in danger, but her queen would then be able to take his rook.

Rush frowned, scratching at the end of his nose. "When you woke up from cryo, Chloe, where were you? Were you in the pod still, watching as the door opened and seeing others around you? Or did you suddenly find yourself in your own quarters like you had just fallen asleep?" Chloe rounded on him, her mouth hanging open as she tried to remember waking up. She couldn't. She watched as he reached forward and took her queen with his knight. Damnit, she hadn't even been paying attention to his knight, knowing he favored the rook for taking most of her pieces. She had two moves to check-mate now, and the game was starting to irritate her. When he had invited her to his room after he had been release from the infirmary, she hadn't imagined it would be to play chess.

"The first thing I remember was that Scott was beside me, making insinuations that you and I were sleeping together, and I punched him." Chloe felt the world fall out from under her. She didn't remember waking up, nor until around three days after they had been released from the pods. Absent-mindedly, she reached out towards the chess board and knocked her king over, watching the white piece roll back and forth on its rounded base.

"Neither do I. I woke up slumped over the console on the bridge, like I had dozed off while doing something. Eli woke up with his laptop in his quarters. Point in fact, no one that we've discretely talked to so far remembers waking up in the pod and stepping out of their own accord. Every single person remembers just waking up like they had fallen asleep doing something. They remember going in, they don't remember coming out." Rush started to place the pieces back on the board, setting up for another game. Inside he was pleased at her progress with the chess board. If nothing else, it confirmed for him that she was real, that she was in there. He had played an easy gambit on the opening move, but the last round she could have still won. Had she been a simulation of Destiny's devising, then she would have been able to easily beat him in chess. Now, all he had to do was convince her of this; while it still did raise a new question of whether he really was in the chair or not now.

"TJ said it might have something to do with how long we were asleep, that it might just be the brain rebooting after being shut down for so long." Chloe continued, coming back to sit down next to him as the theory started to make more sense the more she looked at all the facts presented to her. Her shoulders slumped as she felt Rush's arm pull her close, hand in her hair as he held her with his good arm. The touch should have been comforting; instead it was lighting fire throughout her abdomen once again.

"I have an additional theory I am working on, my dear. I believe that it is the correct one, but Eli has given me pause to consider an alternative. Of course, there's a little theatrics that will have to be involved to test his theory." Chloe nodded as she molded to his side, thankful for the warmth radiating off of him. She felt the brush of his fingers along the nape of her neck, behind her ear; damn him and his roaming hand, knowing just where to touch her to make her insides quiver with need. "Just be ready to react normally to whatever may happen."

"Whatever it is, I like it better than thinking I'm not real." She muttered, turning her face so that she could breathe in the scent of him, still masculine, spicy and earthy rolled into one intoxicating scent, despite being in space as long as they had been. "That this isn't real." She breathed against his chest, mindful of the arm that was still tied securely to allow his collarbone to heal properly. She started to wonder if he had even been shot, if this was a shared dream.

"Well, it seems real to us, but my theory is a bit more, creative… to say the least. Some galaxies, even at FTL travel would take hundreds of years to make the voyage, and we're billions of light years away from Earth at this point. Possibly even trillions, I stopped looking at the map trying to calculate the distance a while ago." He grinned into her hair, glad that the strands still felt like water, even if the cleaning agent they used recently had to be harsher than a regular shampoo. "I believe, and mind you this is just a theory, but I believe that even that long in cryo would be too much, even for the Ancients to handle, let alone a human brain, no matter how close to Ancient physiology and genetic make-up we are ."

Rush continued to caress behind her ear, fingers slipping through the silk of her hair as he continued on with his theory. "I think that once the last pod closed, once Eli figured it out, it uploaded all of us into a simulation, of life as we know it, so that we didn't spend three years, or hundreds of years just dreaming. That Destiny somehow knows that when the cryo pods are activated, that the mind needs to have stimulation; even coma patients dream, people in near vegetative states have brain function somewhere, the ship knows that without that stimulation that we'd wake, disoriented, confused, lost. That we would need some sort of false memory to make the transition from one time to another easier, that the brain is more likely to accept waking three years into the future if there was some sort of time flow during the time asleep." He pressed a kiss to her forehead, letting his cheek rest there as he held her close, eyes closed, savoring the feel of her chest rising and falling against his side.

"That we're living in a shared simulation so that we don't wake in shock that we're able to return to the mission as fast as possible." She continued, her hand sliding up to the side of his face, finger tips trailing across his beard, feeling the coarse hairs tickle the pads of her fingers. "What about the anger?"

"Those who aren't adjusting well. You're less angry now, as is Young. Camille was outright pleasant for once the last time she stopped by. Scott, for all his dickishness, has calmed as well. And of course you'd be angry, waking up with no memory of a couple of days, disoriented as to the lost time you cannot account for, but once everyone settled into a shared routine, once we all were in the simulation – that Eli activated the last pod – everyone started to calm down. And if we are just sharing a dream among us all, then there's hope that when we wake up eventually," Rush trailed off, unable to speak his next words, because if his theory was the correct one, it might mean losing Chloe, just when he was starting to become comfortable with the idea that she was his, wholly. He kissed her forehead again, squeezing out the small amount of dread that crept up along the back of his neck.

"It might mean that I forget this." She finished, finding it easier now to complete his sentences than when she had first started to realize that she wanted him, him and no one else.

"That we might forget this, aye." His voice was rough in her ears; filled with unspoken emotion that threatened everything he had held to be true thus far.

"I won't forget."

"You might." He cautioned, realizing that no matter how much he was dreading waking now, they'd eventually have to, that residual glimpses from the shared dream might continue on into the waking world, even if they didn't fully understand them.

"I won't. I can't." Chloe sat back from him, both hands coming to his cheeks, her head tilting as she pressed a desperate kiss to his lips, searing the memory of his lips into her brain; she wouldn't allow herself to forget if his theory was right. She would wake up, however long from now, and the first thing she'd do would to be throw herself into his arms and kiss him as if the rest of the world could burn down around them as long as they had one another, and she wouldn't let him forget either.

She had spent too long calculating her long term happiness, her chance at long term happiness, to forget that he was the one she wanted, every single inch of his stubborn being, of the harsh exterior, of the true warmth inside. She wanted his experience, his possession of her, his desire for her, his respect for her mind as well as her body, his awe at her genius, his appreciation of her hands. She didn't want young supple skin over bulging muscles, a brain that couldn't string coherent thought together, and a mentality of order over exploration. She wanted lithe, stubborn to a fault, passionate. The life written in his face, the need to solve the universes greatest mysteries in his soul. Chloe pulled back from the kiss, satisfied that she had put the full intention of her need of him into the action. "I won't let you forget either." She whispered against his lips, her forehead resting against his as she held to his cheeks still. "Don't you dare forget me." She ordered as she started to cry.

"As she commands." Rush breathed against her lips, knocking the chess board to the floor, white and black pieces scattering in a jumble of noise. He pulled her into his lap, damning his arm for now, and held her to him, her arms sliding around his neck as her lips returned to his, demanding him as he willingly complied. Their tongues touched, slid across one another as they fought for dominance of the kiss, both too far lost in the other to give up the higher ground.

Chloe felt the zip of his waistcoat pulled, the vee deepening until the zip gave, and the edges of the fabric caught on her nipples, already overly sensitive from their heated exchange. She broke the kiss, her head falling back, the tiny gasp of surprise rising from her throat as she felt his hand brush the fabric aside, thumb and forefinger rolling over the darkened nub, tenderly at first but as he captured her mouth again he added more pressure before releasing her, palm over her breast as his fingers squeezed down, alternating between an almost painful grip, to the most delicate twist of her nipple again. Chloe arched her back, pressing her chest closer to his hand, her hips grinding over the hardened length of his erection, his own hips moving in time with hers.

Chloe released her hold from around his neck, shrugging her shoulders and letting the vest fall to the floor, feeling her legs forced wider apart as he spread his knees wider, feet planted on the floor to give him leverage to continue rocking against her. Other days, Chloe would have cursed the thin fabric of her yoga pants, today she was thankful for them, gasping into his mouth as the slight change of position opened her further, allowing his upward thrusts to slide the full length of him along her clit, the fire that had been just barely licking at her threatening to consume what little trace of rational thought she had left.

Rush slipped his good arm around her back, leaning into her as he kissed a trail from her mouth, down her jaw, tongue tracing the rapid pulsing artery in her neck, dipping into the hollow of her throat, teasing a trail down her skin. "Yes," she breathed, leaning back into his arm as his lips surrounded the hardened nipple he had teased, lips suckling tenderly before she felt his teeth pinch at the nub, making her hips jerk against his, soliciting a higher octave cry from her.

Awkwardly, he looped his arm under one of her knees, flipping them, Chloe's back hitting the bed, a soft "oof" before he was above her, his good arm flexing with effort to hold himself off her as he repeated the same torture to her other breast. Chloe dug her fingernails into the denim fabric covering his hip, her other hand sliding under his shirt, up over his back, feeling the lean muscles of his back contract under her touch, realization setting in that he was stronger than he appeared to be, much stronger.

"Rush come in." The crackle of radio sounded through the room, as Rush pointedly ignored the summons, his hips still moving in time to Chloe's, the flush on her face and tightly screwed shut eyes telling him she was close to her release already, before they really removed any clothing, the first in a series had planned on their alone time becoming. "Rush, come in or I'm sending Greer to fetch you."

Groaning with frustration, Rush pushed himself upright, falling over on his back, his free arm going to the radio. "This had better bloody well be life or death Colonel; otherwise you're going to see what an extremely angry Scot looks like." Pressing her advantage, Chloe swung her leg over his side, straddling him as she continued to seek her release, despite the radio and clothing in the way. Rush barely had to let go of the radio's call button before he moaned, the feel of Chloe's knees pressed into the side of his hips, her hands shaking as she tried to remove his belt, heedless of the call that took his attention from her.

"We need you and Chloe." Young continued, pacing the space beside the chair, his eyes sweeping over the form sitting there, motionless. "Eli's in the chair."

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><p><strong>Dangit Eli! Why'd you have to go and do a thing like that! Hope you enjoyed reading as much as I liked writing this one. This has been my longest update on Sensitivity so far. Next Week - Realization! Thank you again for reading, and to my lovely lovely reviewers: CharlotteAshmore (WOOBIE! *swoon*), badkidoh (you made me really think on some of the items in your last comment ;) ), Anawey, and the lovely lovely Guest! Major love to you all! - Sedation<strong>


	9. Realization

**Hello my Dears - not as large as an update as last time, for that I apologize! - Please Enjoy!**

**Again I do not own SGU, just too much of an imagination and way too much time on my hands.**

**Chapter 9 - Realization**

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><p>Chloe's hands trembled as she helped Rush slip his newly mended shirt over his head, the left arm swinging freely as she checked the blinding keeping his arm immobile. He had rebuckled his belt himself, the intense passion gone from him the instant he had heard, Chloe's own insides iced as she pulled his waistcoat on and zipped it shut, her thin jacket following over it as Rush's hand hit the door panel, hard, his stride long and fast. She nearly ran to keep up with him, not sure if she wanted to follow at the explosion of anger that was about to happen.<p>

As Rush rounded the corner into the chair room, Brody and Volker nearly jumped out of his way, scared of the doctor as he pulled short beside Young, staring at Eli in the chair. "How long, do we know?" He asked immediately, motioning with his good hand for Chloe to take a place at the secondary terminal in the room, his own hand caressing the side of the main terminal as he pulled up time logs, anything that could tell him what he needed to know.

"Volker found him, about five minutes ago." Young pressed him thumb to his lips as he paced, eyes on Eli still. "Want to tell me what your all's plan is?" Rush bristled.

"Plan? You think we hatched some half-cocked plan that involved me making Eli sit in the chair when I've bloody lived through it before and know what to expect?! Are you daft?! Can you even fathom in that tiny brain of yours that I'd let Eli, who figured out the ninth chevron, who has been more useful that anyone else aboard this damned ship this whole damn time, sit in the bloody chair without having ever been in the damned thing before?!" Rush's hand hit the console, hard enough that his fingers were bloodied. "Out! All of you get the bloody hell out of here and let me work!"

"Rush…" Young cautioned as Brody and Volker disappeared down the hall.

"Don't you fucking "Rush" me, you lummox, get the hell out of here and let me work, you standing there looking worried is not helping any and you have other things that need attending to." Rush explained, the fire out of him as soon as Brody and Volker had rounded the corner, leaving the three of them alone. Chloe looked out the door, and then nodded.

"He told me what you two had decided was happening, then said the only way to figure out which of you was really in the chair was for one of you to sit there." Young explained as he palmed the door shut, locking the four of them in the room alone. "Really with the theatrics again?"

"They work, every time." Rush explained as he shook his right hand, face wincing at the pain in his hand. "If they see me get angry still, they'll realize that everything is normal, it was paramount that we return the simulation as close as possible to reality."

"I still don't understand how this is going to work…" Young trailed off, his eyes skimming over the data flowing across Chloe's screen.

"Eli's theory is that he is in the chair trying to figure out how to correct the pod before his air supply runs out. I built in a command to the pod sequence to wake me up two days after my pod closes, if the broken pod hadn't been repaired by then. We'd have less time to fix it, but more minds working on the issue.."

"Would mean it wouldn't matter if you could solve it faster. I see the logic behind the idea. But if Chloe and I aren't really here, just meant to help either one of you is actually trying to solve the puzzle, what's the use of the two of us being in here now?"

"You're all bloody daft sometimes. If I couldn't have figured it out, I would have release Chloe, and then you from the pods. It would shorten the time down to three days to solve the issue instead of the two weeks that Eli would have had. Eli and Chloe would go back in, and then you and I would do what we could so that I'd remain in the hydroponics lab for the three years. It should work, theoretically at least." Rush explained as he looked for a pattern in the scrolling data, in anything about him really. He knew he was in the chair; everything was going too perfectly for it not to be him.

"Nicholas!"

"No." Chloe and Young overlapped on one another as he held out his good hand for them to be silent.

"Give it a rest, Chloe you're a civilian, so is Eli, and this mission, if any of these people are to live, need a leader they'll willingly follow, not a villain they follow because they're scared of the alternative. And I am in the bloody chair in real life, as we speak; I know I am, because everything is going too damn perfect here as of late for it to be otherwise!"

"While I feel everything around me is falling apart, Rush you can't honestly think we'd make it very far without your help, do you?" Young countered, scrubbing a hand through his hair. "I'll be the first to admit that I wanted nothing more than you off this boat every single time I looked at you, but you're part of this crew as well, and you're needed for us to have even the remotest chance in hell to make it back to Earth."

"Give up on that, we're past the point of returning, and you know it."

"Wait a damn minute here, I've been in the chair before as well, how do you know it's not me in there?" Chloe demanded, point a finger at Rush as she slapped a hand down on the secondary terminal. "I'm just as willing to make sure everyone gets through this alive, and if neither of you could find the answer you know I could go in and look too, that's your reasoning for waking me up next, isn't it?!"

Rush held his hand out to her, seeing the anger cross her face as he took a few steps towards her. "Whatever intention I might have had of asking you to sit back in the chair vanished the moment I knew. I would not let you sit there, ever, not even in a dream state, or shared conscious or real life, ever again."

Eli groaned loudly as the braces around his head retracted, slumping forward, head in his hands as he re-oriented himself to his surroundings. "It's not me." He said simply as Rush nodded.

"Has to be me then." Rush said simply, completely missing the meaning of Eli's words, and going back to his terminal and punching in a sequence. "Get up Eli, we have to solve this and get everything working right again."

"No, you're not going in there, none of us are." Eli shook his head trying to clear the fog from his mind so he could explain.

"Like hell I'm not, I'm solving this, and we're all going to take a nice little ice nap for the next few years and when we wake we'll hash this all out then, now move." Rush commanded, covering the ground to the chair.

"Rush, hold up, let him explain." Young ordered, stepping to stop Rush from trying to spill Eli out to the floor to take his place.

"Get out of my way." Rush said simply, his tone making certain that he wasn't asking.

"Not going to happen Rush."

"Get out of my way so I can make sure she lives!"

"Gentlemen, I said none of you are going to be sitting in this chair for the interim, until we figure out what has happened." Young and Rush both stopped, turning in tandem to Eli. "Let him through Everett if you like, looks like I could take him right now."

"Jack?" Young asked, his eyes nearly bulging from his skull. "What the hell are you doing here General, I mean, I understand this is a dream state, or whatever the hell you want to call it, but really?"

"What is the meaning of this?!" Rush demanded, sighing heavily.

"Eli thought you all would be confused, let's all go sit down somewhere quiet where we can talk this out like rational adults." General O'Neill motioned to the door. "And don't let on it's me to anyone we pass."

"Oh for heaven's sake, come along you dull-witted boys, I want to hear this one." Chloe rounded on the spot, hands thrown up in defeat once again.

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><p>General O'Neill sunk into Young's chair behind the desk, feeling more at home with something to block the three angry people in front of him from jumping him all at once. Fingers folding over themselves on the desk, he took a breath before letting it out with a laugh. They all three were standing there as if they were about to receive the dressing down of their lives. "Seriously, sit down, get comfortable, this is going to take a while to explain, and might need some of that swill from the still to get through this."<p>

Chloe nodded, palming the door lock and heading out, content on being anywhere than Colonel Young's "office/quarters" at the moment. Rush turned a watched as she retreated, the door swishing shut behind her. Good hand playing with the hairs on his chin, once again noting he needed to trim back the new growth, he nodded to Young before taking a seat on the couch, staring pointedly that the space next to him was for Chloe once she returned. Young shrugged and sat down on the chest at the end of his bed, hands on his knees, barely able to contain his curiosity of how O'Neill was here.

"Care to start?" He asked, wanting this new mystery to be solved as soon as possible. He didn't like being in the dark.

"As soon as Miss Armstrong returns, of course." O'Neill nodded, frowning at Eli's tee shirt and hoodie. "Seriously, the kid dresses like this all the time?" He finally pulled at the fabric a moment, before shaking his head.

"Very nearly, we've not the option of a new set of clothing by popping down to the market down the hill you know." Rush felt tired, his accent more pronounced now.

"If, this is any indication, we might have solved that. Might, don't get too overly excited yet." O'Neill cautioned as Chloe let herself back in, setting down a tray with four mugs and a container of the only alcohol they had on board. At least this latest batch had been tempered with fruit peels and a sweet smelling weed they had picked up somewhere. The taste wasn't that of turpentine. Chloe worked quickly, pouring a small measure into each cup, before handing Rush his first, then the General, then Young. She smiled sweetly at each of them in turn, making her preferences quite clear.

Joining Rush on the couch, Chloe crossed her legs, Senator's aide mask in place as she took a small sip of the alcohol. Admittedly, it was good to have it, as she knew, without a shadow of a doubt; she was not going to like what the General had to tell them.

"Eli is safe, he's on Earth right now, seeing his mother, explaining some things to her, and since I've been in one of the chairs before, it was safe to assume I could work my way out of it. We're using each other to pass along messages. Eli couldn't sit in the chair himself, so he came to us, knowing I had survived one before. It's a risk, one he's explaining to his mother right now, but I was willing to take it since the situation is so dire. At least, is how it appears." O'Neill picked his own mug up, taking a swig of the burning liquid. He swished the brew around in his mouth, nodding, his lower lip pressed out some. "Not as bad as last time." He commented as Young held up a hand.

"Hold on, I'm not understanding, how are you here, in this…" Young motioned around them. "And Eli is on Earth?"

"The very same question I was about to ask…" Rush trailed off, smirking at Young.

"You three, along with everyone else on board are as frozen as Thanksgiving turkey right now. Eli could tell from the data logs that everyone was uploaded into Destiny's archives, and that something was happening. He couldn't tell what, but he knew some of you were active right now. As I understand it, only a few of you are in the simulation at a time."

"I was right…" Rush breathed, taking a long drink from his mug.

"Yes and no." O'Neill continued. "You were right that you are all in a dream state, or rather a simulation, Eli explained that much. What he had an issue with was fixing the last pod."

"Which is no huge deal, if the pod doesn't activate in two days, I have a program set to wake me up." Rush stated, watching as Young rolled his eyes.

"That's where this gets difficult to explain." O'Neill took another drink from his cup. "You did wake up, along with Young and Chloe, Eli brought all of you out of the pods to work the issue."

"But we're here right now." Chloe looked confused at Rush, this was the shared consciousness right now, not the real world wasn't it?

"You are, because after several days, the decision was made to come to Earth for help. After a few days of working on the pod between all of you, Young came to Earth to explain the situation and what was going on at the time. The decision was made that neither Rush, nor Eli should sit in the chair, as you two had the best chance of figuring out the issue. Young couldn't do it as he had never been in the chair. That left Chloe to go in. Rush strongly opposed subjecting Chloe to the chair again." O'Neill nodded a look of understanding passing over his face as Chloe and Rush both stiffened in their seats, an unspoken question passing between them.

"So since none of you were able to go in, the idea was made for the three of you to return to stasis, and for Eli and I to switch and for me to sit in the chair, since I've had some experience with them in the past."

"Sir, I have to strongly object this course of action!" Young stood suddenly.

"Sit down Colonel, I'm not done." O'Neill waited until Young was seated again. "While Eli and I were trading places with the communication stones, Chloe got the bright idea to sit in the chair herself. Chloe is controlling this simulation right now, looking for the answer."

"Jesus Christ." Rush muttered, covering his face with his good hand. What ever thought he had of his greatest fear being to decide if he or Eli would be the ones to die was suddenly replaced with the thought that Chloe would die if he couldn't figure this all out in time. His good hand curled into a fist, ready to punch something at a moment's notice. Chloe could not be in the goddamned chair, not now, not that things were finally starting to be right among them.

"Since Eli and I are body swapped right now, Young and Rush returned to the stasis pods, knowing that if they were returned to the shared simulation, they'd be able to help Chloe there, while Eli and I swapped back and forth to find out ways around."

"That still begs the question of how you're here, General." Rush spoke first, very certain he wasn't going to like the answer to this.

"Another failsafe was put in place, one to wake the three of us again a few days before the two week period was over, so we could manually pull Chloe out of the chair if needs be. I'm in the stasis pod, in Eli's body of course. Eli has already stated that if a solution cannot be found, he is going to be the one to stay out of the pods. Colonel, we'll need to have words about Eli's over-developed sense of right and wrong."

"Wait, if I'm in the chair, why am I not seeing floating numbers and data flowing all around glowing like what Rush saw when he was in the chair?" Chloe was ahead of the game then, her mind working in overdrive, trying to put together logically the reason why her experience was not going the same way.

Rush stood, good hand fisting a bunch of hair on his head, trying to put the pieces together so he could have at least an inkling of an idea of what the hell was going on right now. He was frustrated more than ever with the news that Chloe was in the chair. "You might not be because the answer you're looking for is how to fix the broken pod, or for a way to keep someone live for the three years while we float through the black to the next galaxy. Plus, I was aware I was in the chair. Being told you were in the chair, means you're just now realizing you are there, so it might start at any time, or it may be a tool you'll see, or something will just start showing up randomly over and over again that will lead you to the answer." Rush sat back down, taking one of Chloe's hands in his good hand, giving it a small squeeze. He would have never let her in the chair – everything he had done up to this point was to save her from being in danger; there was absolutely no way he would have let her in that chair again.

"The best thing for all of us to do right now, is to start helping Chloe figure this out, because she is in the chair, and we've only a few days to figure this out in before we all wake up and have to pull Chloe out manually." O'Neill sighed; a few more days in Eli's tee-shirt might be too much for him.

"Wait, if we're all aware right now, then we should be able to identify patterns and answers as well, all Chloe has to do is allow us free access in the simulation." Rush said, the idea sparking in his head.

"Theoretically, yes. You had that idea on the outside as well. And since we four know this is a simulation now, we can move and search at will. From what you and Eli explained, you should be able to search as well, you too Everett, we just have to figure it out without being too overtly aware that we're not unknowing that this is a simulation. As soon as others in the crew start figuring out, we'd be wrestling with them over control, or, as you theorized outside Dr. Rush." O'Neill continued the explanation.

"I still don't see why Eli isn't here with us to help." Young rubbed the back of his head, trying to wrap his mind around the idea. Sure, he and Rush had talked about this over a chess game one night with a bit too much from the still, but he still didn't trust that Rush wouldn't have talked Chloe into sitting in the chair. "No offense Jack, I'm glad to have you, but Eli could figure this out with us."

"You're not seeing the issue Colonel." Rush said simply as he picked his mug back up, shooting the rest down. "Someone has to be in the chair, and the others frozen. Eli has never been in the chair before, so it couldn't have been him, and it couldn't have been you. Eli and the General switched because the General has experience in the chair, A, and Eli can do research on Earth much faster than Chloe or I would be able to do, and he has an idea of what he would be looking for as a B." Chloe frowned at his side.

"Thank you very much for having confidence in my ability to do research, I went to Harvard you know, it's not that easy to get in there, let alone graduate." Chloe crossed her arms over her chest, huffing her frustration. "I do see the logic in the situation though. General O'Neill knows how to work through these simulations, so does Dr. Rush, Colonel Young you may not have been in the chair before, but you're good a finding answers, and you're tenacious in doing so. And well me, it had to be me in the chair for it to work this way, and I'm fairly certain that Dr. Rush, Eli and I would have come to that conclusion while Eli was off using the communication stones."

"If it had been my decision you wouldn't be in that bloody chair." Rush snapped, setting the empty mug down. "No more talking, we have a problem that we have to help Chloe solve before we run out of time." Rush got to his feet, intent on heading to his room to start puzzling out the answer.

"Don't sit in the chair Rush, that's my exit from the simulation to switch back with Eli." O'Neill warned as Rush reached for the door panel.

"Lock the room down for all I care, I'm going to review the schematics in the ship's database to see if Destiny won't give us a clue."

"What should I be doing?" Chloe asked, suddenly uncertain if there was something she needed to be doing in all this.

"Look for things that don't make sense in their context. For me it was the house number, the dates and times, because Destiny was trying to give me the clue I needed for the Master Code. She'll give you hints if you start looking for them." Rush's tone as gentler as he explained, none of the bitter recriminations he had held while talking with the Colonel or General in his tone for her. Young smirked to himself, as O'Neill just grinned. Rush nodded, palmed the door release and headed out to start his work.

As the door swished closed, O'Neill chuckled and then looked at Chloe. "So, you and Rush now?"

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><p>Rush nearly punched the door panel to his room, the door taking painfully long to open before he swept inside, kicking chess pieces out of the way as he made for his notebooks. He needed to go find a quiet area, with a console, to lock himself in. He had to figure this out and get Chloe out of the chair, as fast, and as soon as possible. Chloe being in the chair changed everything, all his planning, all his theories, all his ideas. Had it been him in the chair, he would have just uploaded himself to the computer banks and have been done with it. He could have managed until a host body could have been found, or better yet, he could have just locked himself away with the database and spent the rest of Destiny's journey learning, neither of which posed any real issue for him. Everyone else would be safe.<p>

Damnit, when had he become a sentimental fool? Thinking of everyone else during his decision making. Rush sat on the bed, head in his good hand as he thought back to watching Gloria die all over again, thought back to hunting down the man who had killed Mandy, back to seeing his duplicate self-terminate in the chair. Gloria had told him to go back, to be the good person he was before all this, and he had believed he could, but the prospect of Chloe not allowing them out of the pods to save her scared him. Truly and properly scared him. The girl was too noble for her own good, and between letting him or Eli or Young die, she wouldn't allow them to, of this he was certain.

He heard soft feet padding down his corridor, the door to his room still open since he had neglected to shut the damned thing as he wallowed in his misery. Chestnut brown hair and beautiful baby blue eyes regarded him from around the corner, uncertainty written on her face as Chloe stared. She went to speak, brown orbs cautioning her to choose her words carefully, the anger under his surface welling up, ready to strike at the least provocation. Her eyes closing, she shook her head, and padded into the room, coming to stand between his legs, her arms wrapping around his neck, pulling him close to her as she smoothed over his hair, watching the sable and grey strands messily fall back into place.

Rush's good arm wrapped around her waist, holding her close to him as he rubbed his face against her abdomen, the weave of his waistcoat familiar, even with her scent mingling with his on the fabric. Words wouldn't come to him, but has her fingernails began to scratch across his scalp, he felt the anger at her for being stupid enough to sit in the chair again leaving, replaced with desire to keep her safe, keep her away from harm. Rush breathed out heavily, taking a deeper breath in, pulling her scent; the violet, petrichor, and slightly musky scent of her into him, filing it away deep in his brain, a memory to call up when he needed to remember just how important it was that he keep his mind sharp and his decision making in line with what would be best for everyone.

Chloe smiled sadly at him, as his face turned up towards her, realizing this was Rush at his most vulnerable, that he was simply allowing her to be there, not immediately slamming walls up to keep her out. It was a moment of trust, of budding trust between them; one she would not simply squander away. Unwrapping herself from him, feeling his hand trail over the last trace of her skin as she turned away, she palmed the door panel, the door hissing closed as she returned to him, pressing him back on the bed as she followed him, her extra blanket grabbed and pulled over them both. Nuzzling into his side, she pulled the covers over their heads, the weave only allowing bits of light in here and there, keeping everything else out; even the shifting blues and purples of their FTL travel.

Chloe's arm thrown about his middle, her leg tossed over his, pressing the vast majority of her body to his, he placed a hand on the back of her head, a brief kiss feathering the center of her forehead as he watched her, still unable to trust himself to speak. She let the silence hang between them, her fingers tracing patterns over his hip bone; which by all means stuck out way too far from his frame any more. The slight extra weight he had carried when they had first come aboard was gone now; he was all skin, muscle and bone under her touch. She too had lost whatever padding she had carried on her frame, her collarbones sharply defined, her rib cage showing her more of her ribs than the nice covering she had to keep the skin smooth. The times had been rough, food hadn't been nearly enough for everyone, water had been rationed – everyone was slowly starving before they entered the dream. Even with the reserves they had put away before stepping into the pods, they were all starving some way or another.

Rush was starved for touch, for human connection; the way he almost purred deep in his chest every time she touched him of her own volition had been evident, even before the pods, back in the hallway, looking over their work. It was still there, and would be there once they woke, but the look he had given her as she had squeezed his hand, they'd known then, she was certain of it. Here they were alone, under the blanket curled together they could block everything else out for a time, and just enjoy _being_. Of not having to be something else for anyone else on board, the genius who could solve any puzzle, the girl who could figure out FTL jumps as simply as picking out a new shirt. Chloe closed her eyes, pressing her face into his shoulder as she felt his lips on her forehead, the scratch of his beard, still long neglected. She took in a shaky breath, wanting to cry, wanting to say so much to him, but not knowing how to start.

She had scared him, that much was evident in the way he held her close to him, as if she might suddenly vanish from him, like the enormity of their situation was welling up around him and she was the last bit of life afforded to him. She felt his lips move, barely the hiss of a whisper from him.

"Why, why would you do this to me, why now?" His words were laced with hurt, his hand trembling against the back of her head as she tightened her grip around his waist, holding herself as close to him as possible.

"There was no other way." Her own words barely heard by her own ears.

"There is always a way," Rush trailed off, his fingers sliding into her hair to keep himself from shaking.

"I'm scared Nicolas." The silence started to build again, only their troubled breathing between them.

"Yes, Peach, I am as well." He finally admitted, turning up on his side towards her, tucking her head under his chin, soft reassuring kisses pressing to her temple. "I am as well."

"We'll figure this out right?" She asked him, her hand resting gently on his side, well aware that the pain in his shoulder had to be killing him right now in this position. He nodded, pressing another kiss to her temple.

"Aye, we will."

"I trust you." Chloe muttered against his chest, the warmth of the blanket over them making her feel more peaceful now, as if staying like this for whatever time was left was the best thing she could think of. Pieces of a puzzle, fit together for the first time properly; the edges a little rough from trying to be forced in place against other pieces, the paper maybe peeling a bit from the backing, but the picture was still clear, and whole – no matter how long it took the pieces would always fall in place at just the right time.

Rush took in a long breath, his insides shaking at her admission, a sense of victory washing over him. A more power statement, not even a mention of love, or of want, of need could have set him right then – her trust, her admitted trust was what he had needed, the thing that would see him through this. He would not betray her trust, couldn't. He'd walk out into the vacuum of space through an airlock before he lost that. Three small words had given him more of wholeness than anything else – not even the mission was more important now. He had her trust, the one thing he hadn't realized he needed the most until she spoke it into existence. Hand still cradling the back of her head, he shifted, his lips covering hers as he pulled her lower lip between his teeth, gently worrying the skin, careful not to light their barely restrained passions around one another.

Forehead rested against hers, he cupped her cheek, his lips pulling into a soft smile. "I will save you."

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><p><strong>Hope you've enjoyed once again - I had a good time writing this chapter, and did a lot of it to Meg Meyer's - Desire, it's pretty good -smile- Again thank you to all my wonderful reviewers, and to the lovely lovely Charlotte Ashmore for the plug she gave me for Sensitivity - I hope you enjoyed your sneak peek of this week, and if your response was any indication you've been waiting for this for too long now! Thank you all again, next weeks update will be Thursday due to some travel! See you next week!<strong>


	10. Investigation

**Happy Friday, my Dears! - Here is Chapter 10 - in before I take a vacation this coming week. Chapter 11 may be delayed next week, but I will do my best to have it up by Saturday at the latest. Many many thanks to Charlotte Ashmore for stepping in to Beta read this chapter. Any correct punctuation and grammar is entirely her doing this week. Please Enjoy and leave me a comment if you like it! - S**

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**Again I do not own SGU, we all know by now that if I did Scott would be cleaning latrines for months and Young would never have made it to the ship :3**

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**Chapter 10 - Investigation**

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><p>O'Neill and Young rounded a corner, opening the next door in the hallway, doing quick searches now that they were aware, and the source code having appeared in their vision as soon as Chloe had left them. She apparently had unconsciously given them access, not that either of them were complaining.<p>

"So, McKay thinks he's figured out a way to dial Destiny?" Young asked, opening one of the crates looking for anything that would jump out at him as being a key. He fitted the lid back in place as he continued searching.

"He thinks so, but when has McKay honestly ever been correct?" O'Neill sighed, taking the lid off another crate. "He seems to have the IOA and most of Homeworld convinced. Eli is working on the algorithm right now."

"Shouldn't he be doing research into how to fix the pod? Jack, I'm all for being able to get a supply line in order, but Rush has time and time again stated that Destiny isn't able to dial back to Earth, and may never be able to." Young leaned against a crate, brushing the stubble on his cheeks.

"We all know Rush wants to stay here, and I'm fine with that, but if we can dial Destiny, we can bring someone back to Earth instead of trying to worry about the pod repair." O'Neill reasoned, as Young shook his head.

"Need I remind you the last time we tried to dial Earth, we all ended up in an alternate time line in which we were trapped on a planet with no way off, or to even let you all know where we were? Not to mention Telford was the only one to make it home in one piece, or how much cost to the systems just dialing caused?" Young folded his arms over his chest, not liking this idea.

"Which is why Eli is going over the algorithm. I'm fairly certain he'll announce it's a stupid idea and that will be that. And in the meantime, Eli has full access to McKay's research, along with Daniel's research." O'Neill stopped, leaning back against his own crate. "The idea is too risky in my opinion, but if it's ordered, we're going to dial Destiny."

"This is the real reason Chloe's in the chair, isn't it? You couldn't have Rush in there with access to all the ship's systems while you and McKay we're plotting all of this." Young thumped his fist down on the top of the crate, shaking his head once again.

"Destiny doesn't have enough power to get everyone through the gap. Eli's latest power fluctuation calculations show that the pods will start failing along the last couple days of travel across the void before you'd be able to top off in a star."

"Bullshit. Eli and Rush ran those numbers to death before we all went into stasis. I trust them over any team of people on Earth working "this issue". They don't have the same motivation to get it right the first time as we do." Young slammed his fist back into the top of the crate once more.

O'Neill grinned as he placed his hands against the edge of his own crate, nodding. "I don't like it either, but I'm glad to hear that. You're thinking properly, which means you're frozen as you should be."

"It was a test?"

"It was."

"What else are you holding back General?" Young's eyes narrowed.

"Nothing more. I needed to make certain that you trusted Eli and Rush to find an answer. This isn't about just one person Everett, this is about everyone on the ship and making sure everyone gets to the new galaxy in one piece. I need you to be fully rational in your decision making, since all four of you seem bent on killing yourselves for one another."

"You're a real piece of work, you know that?" Young muttered, turning and flipping the lid off another crate. "You think I'd endanger everyone on board the ship to save one person?"

"You have before." O'Neill pointed out, picking up a small device from his crate. "And I'm certain you will again. It's just a matter of motivation for you. Providing the right motivation to you all to stick through this and actually solve the damn issue instead of losing one of you." O'Neill paused, nodding to himself as he let the device slip back into the box before pulling out another one. "You've not decided on what to do with Scott yet either."

"Seeing as we're in the ship's database, and that Rush isn't actually shot outside of the simulation, I don't see much need to discipline him for the action. Especially when, if I understand correctly, he may not even remember what he did when we wake up for good."

"Listen Everett, time is going to flow normally for you all in the simulation. Once everyone is in there, and the pods are all closed, you're going to experience an approximation of real life. You'll continue on as if you're awake, as if nothing has changed. Which means, Scott has to be disciplined, because while he caused no real bodily harm to Dr. Rush, he still shot a member of his own away team. Everyone else inside the simulation thinks they're awake, they don't know that they're still frozen, and that this is a construct meant to ease their transition from dreaming to waking states. If you keep putting it off, just because you know nothing really happened, then you'll be putting people in suspicion to start doubting the validity of the simulation." O'Neill dropped the device he was holding back into the crate, closing the lid and moving to the next box. "If they start to question it again, Eli theorizes that the anger issues and even worse behavioral problems will start to occur. We can't have that happening, since we have no idea if being killed in the simulation will translate into real life. We know Rush is whole on the outside, but the damage done to him inside was physical, not mental. There's so much of this we don't understand at all."

"Agreed on that point, Sir, but again, disciplining a member of the crew for something they had no control over at the time is at best, ludicrous to even entertain."

"It's an order then, Colonel. Discipline Scott as needed to maintain the security of the simulation, end of story."

"And your suggestions, Sir, it's not like I can have him discharged from service out here."

"Strip him of Rank and put him on kitchen detail. If you all wake up in the next galaxy, you can reinstate him if you want, but you'll need to be aware that if you let yourself act outside of your normal behaviors people are going to begin questioning. You cannot have more people aware than already are."

"Right, the whole compromising the integrity of the simulation. Fuck." Young rubbed his face again, the headache he had been fighting for several days returning in full force.

"To put it mildly, yes." O'Neill muttered, reaching into a crate, a smile crossing his features. "And what might this be?" Young covered the space between them, eyeing the items inside the crate.

"Those look like tools."

"Stating the obvious." O'Neill muttered as he turned the first item from the box over in his hand, the weight of the items seeming too light for how large it was.

"And spare parts. You're telling me we had spare parts on this boat the whole time without knowing it?" Young could barely keep the chuckle out of his question.

"Mark this area on the map. We'll come here first when we wake out of the simulation in a few days. If, and this is a big if, these items are here, like what we're seeing, they may be something we can use to fix the mechanics of the pod." Young opened one of the pockets on his vest, pulling out one of their remaining sheets of paper and marked the room on and approximation of the ship. He nodded as he tucked the paper back into the pocket and turned to exit the room. O'Neill pushed the top off another crate and laughed. "Rush was complaining about clothes?" He asked as Young came over to look in the crate. Bolts of what appeared to be fabric, as well as a device that looked like it would be used for sewing sat haphazardly in the crate. Rich blues, blacks, and green fabrics that moved with sheen like the covers of the beds folded over to show deep reds, purples and yellows. Young laughed.

"Well, that'll make a couple of people really happy." He nodded.

"Why haven't any of these crates been looked through before? If these are actual items aboard the ship right now, you could have had an easier go of things to this point."

"We didn't know what had the potential of being in most of the crates, and with everything else going on constantly; I don't think we've had time to really explore parts of the ship." Young pulled the map back out of his pocket and made some notes in the small margin.

"First order of business when you all wake up, get some food in you, and get going. Second should be to go through these crates. When Eli proves that McKay's algorithm is incorrect, you're going to need a lot of this stuff for the long term. Hell, I'm pretty sure you let some of the folks on here have the materials to make new clothes, and they'd be over the moon." O'Neill nodded to himself, hoping these items were there when they came out of the pods, because it would be so much easier for everyone to have some small comforts.

"Find me a ream of paper for Rush, and I think the whole boat would be happy for weeks, he'd lock himself away and have a field day with a ream of paper at his disposal."

"You have no idea how right you are." O'Neill nodded as he palmed the door control to exit the room. They had more places to search before they could call it a day. Young eyed the crates one more time before palming the control to shut the door, the metal swishing into place.

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><p><strong>XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX<strong>

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><p>Chloe chewed on the cap to her pen, her eyes scrolling over the notepad she had stolen from Rush's room a few minutes earlier, the pen itself being tapped on the small papers as she walked along the chalk-board hallway, stopping here and there to check calculations that should still be the same. The door slid open at the far end of the hallway, but no one stepped through within any reasonable amount of time. Brow raised in unspoken query, Chloe walked to the end of the hallway, sticking her head out the door and checking in both directions. No one was around. Shrugging to herself, she palmed the door control and the doors slid back shut.<p>

She walked down the hallway again, back to where she had been calculating her latest problem, a seemingly unending amount of numbers that jumbled together in her consciousness as she worked. A few moments later the door opened again, and once again, no one stepped through. Nostrils flaring in anger, she walked back to the door way, stepping out of the hall once more, eyes trailing back and forth looking for whoever was being a smart ass and playing games. She was seriously irritated that someone would be playing games at a time like this, before remembering that no one else knew what she, Dr. Rush, Eli and the Colonel knew at the time. No one else knew they were in a race against time.

Shaking her head in annoyance, Chloe stepped back into the chalk-board hallway, this time staying near the door as she palmed the control to shut the doors. The corridor felt different this time, the scrolling of Destiny's data stopping, as the walls seemed to concave around her, blowing out as if something in the programming of the chair was being altered. She felt like someone was there with her, some presence pressing her back down the hallway towards her current problem, some unspoken command moving her feet, even though her heart rate started accelerating in terror.

She couldn't stop, someone was controlling the simulation now, and she was not a willing participant. She felt a tiny hand press to the middle of her back, rounding to make sure she was alone, only to have the same disembodied ghost hand pull at her own, pulling her to the end of the hallway. Destiny's familiar orange-yellow glow started to stream against the wall.

_She is in control. None of you are awake yet at all – all of this is a farce._

Chloe gasped aloud, dropping her pen and the notepad to the floor as she turned to run, the ghost hand grabbing her again, holding her in place.

_YOU have to stop her, I don't have long, Dr. Perry is in control, she beat the quarantine as soon as she knew everyone but Eli was in stasis, but couldn't keep me from taking over another portion of the computer system – couldn't keep me locked up if she let herself out. _

Chloe froze in place as the text faded away almost as quickly as it appeared, taking in the implications.

_Eli is the only one awake, and I cannot communicate with him. O'Neill isn't himself, its Perry. She will try and keep you from alerting Dr. Rush – you have to be careful. She means to kill you. All of this is a simulation inside a simulation to allow Eli to die. If Rush wakes up, he will sit in the chair, this is what she wants – Don't let him sit in the chair, at any cost!_

"Ginn." Chloe whispered to herself, her arms starting to tremble as she held herself in place.

_I am trying to enter the simulation to help you, but I can't, she's blocked me out of most places. You have to figure a way out of the simulation. She's disabled-_

The text stopped as the concaved walls snapped back into place, her hands truly dropping the pen and note pad as she felt an arm slip around her waist, a familiar bristled chin touch her cheek as a small kiss was placed on her earlobe.

"So here is where you've been, working equations nonetheless." Rush breathed, holding her close to his chest, mindful not too press her to hard to his injured collarbone. The orange-yellow text of Destiny's database resumed in her vision as she nodded, Chloe leaning her head back against his uninjured shoulder with a slightly forced smile playing across her lips.

"Yes, I thought maybe coming here and working on the last equation we had been working together might give me a little bit of insight on what may be happening." Chloe explained as she turned in his arm, her hands touching his cheeks as she stood on her tip-toes to kiss him. She smiled genuinely at the feel of his skin – that was at least real enough. "What about you?"

"I checked most of what I had access to, going over different logs and schematics and trying to find some record of the cargo that had been aboard the ship at one time or another. As far as I can tell, there are no more stasis pods, and if they had kept a manifest of the items they had stocked the ship with, well, it was overwritten many, many years ago by some automation or program running in the background of the ships systems." Rush explained as he absently started to stroke her hair.

Chloe nodded as she followed the line of reasoning. "A good thought though." She murmured, smiling against his chest. If she stayed silent for very much longer she was going to burst, but whoever had been communicating with her via the wall, had enough power to override the simulation, or whatever she was in, and interrupt the data stream from Destiny. Ginn was in the computer, but so was Dr. Perry. What if the warning had been from Dr. Perry as a bit of misdirection? And then there was the question of General O'Neill – was he really who he said he was? Could they even trust that?

"Penny for your thoughts?" Rush asked, kissing her temple as he rocked them back and forth a bit, the familiar sway of a slow dance.

"Did General O'Neill seem a little disoriented to you?" She finally asked, not knowing how to process all the information. Chloe felt the simulation slide out of alignment once again, and she smiled, trying to cover the feeling that felt so much like dropping out of FTL, knowing she could keep the charade. Rush might be Ginn, or Perry, or any one at the moment, the way things were starting to feel.

"Well, I never paid much attention to the man, even if he was some kind of hero to the people around him. He was military, muscle bound, order following, never struck me as particularly bright. But that is an unreasonable assessment made when I was incredibly angry with life. What differences I might note, might just be because I never gave him a chance." Rush grinned at her, as she slipped both arms around his neck, her fingers lacing behind his head as she swayed with him, following his lead to whatever music was playing in his head.

"I always liked him on Earth. He was always cordial, and well mannered." She grinned a bit, as he turned her, good hand going to spin her around, before he pulled her back to his chest, her hand absently covering his scar, feeling the ridge under his shirt where the alien tracking device had been removed, her thumb worrying over it as they moved.

"Things I wouldn't have noticed because I was always so busy working." Rush's eyes slid to the side, the lines around his eyes more pronounced as he thought.

"Penny for your thoughts?" Chloe asked, using the same cadence he had just moments before.

"As soon as we wake up, I'm finding my music player, and dancing with you for real. La Vie en Rose, an old song, 1940's, a French singer…" He spoke softly.

"Ahh, the slow dance. Did Piaf do that song in English at some point?" Chloe nodded, summoning up the beginning strands of the song, the brass and the oboe playing through her mind.

"The French is better." Rush laughed, as Chloe shifted, hearing the song in her head finally. It was familiar, one that she had enjoyed when she had gone through a French phase in high-school. She still loved Paris, and had a love of the language still, so the song had stuck with her.

"Quand il me prend dans ses bras, Il me parle tout base, Je vois la vie en rose…" She sang, the trumpets in her head playing now as she continued to dance with him, their pace matching since they both heard the same song now. Rush grinned as he pressed another kiss to her forehead before pressing his cheek against her head, doing his best with just one arm; he chose to put said arm along her waist, foregoing to outstretched hand that was customary to the dance.

"Very good Peach." He muttered into her hair, his eyes closed.

"I took several years of the language." She confessed, as the dance slowly came to a stop, the smile on her lips still. "Finally decide on which pet name you were staying with?" She asked, poking him in the side.

"Finally, aye. It seems to be my favorite." Rush's cheeks colored a bit as she noticed, always surprised at how incredibly smart she was, even without the alterations the blue aliens had done to her.

"No wonder, if I remember the few meals we had at Icarus before it blew up, you preferred the peach cobbler." Chloe smiled brightly as she leaned back some from him, remembering the lunch and dinner party. She had kept an eye on him on the ship, at the base – something had drawn her eye to him when he deemed them worthy of his company. A feudal lord holding court over the commoners, allowing them to see inside his greatest accomplishment, and doing poorly at hiding the disappointment when it failed.

"God, for a bowl of cobbler with vanilla bean ice-cream and a drizzle of chocolate." Rush tilted his head back some, swearing he could taste the burst of peaches on his tongue, the sweet meatiness of the flesh mixed with the taste of honey and sugary syrup, with a bread topping crumbled with brown sugar and tossed with butter – the memory was too fresh in his mind for him to forget.

"A steak, medium rare with a glass of red wine, and roasted red potatoes…" Chloe thought back to her meal before she and her father had left to come aboard the Hammond for the trip to Icarus base. They had stopped at her favorite restaurant on the way, the meal would only have been better if she had the chocolate cake her father had offered her after.

"Pan seared brussel sprout quarters in bacon fat, with a garlic aioli dipping sauce…" Rush remembered the meal, one he had as a child in Glasgow, one his mother had fixed, making the aioli sauce from scratch. It had been the only way she could get him to eat vegetables as a child.

"Mashed potatoes with gravy, turkey and cranberry sauce.." Chloe finally sighed Thanksgiving having come and gone on Earth, and she had gone hungry on the day thinking of her mother's cooking and the family gatherings she would have missed. She would be missing several more gatherings in the foreseeable future, and her mind turned to the family she would most likely never see again, before thinking of all the foods she might never have again.

"A stroll along the Seine at midnight, the Tower lit in twinkle lights, and the smell of cappuccino from the little bistro down the lane." Rush had always drunk his coffee black once he had arrived in America. His tea he liked well sugared and creamed, but he could never find it in himself to defile the coffee Gloria would make in the French press with anything other than the ceramic of his favorite mug. Before the cancer she would make the coffee using the press, every morning, without fail. After they had gotten a machine and he loathed the addiction to the drink because it wasn't the same.

"A huge bucket of popcorn, some sugary soft-drink and gummi bears at an early afternoon action movie." Chloe's eyes closed as she remembered in vivid detail seeing her last movie on Earth – trapped on a spaceship, the film had been more of a thriller than action, and she would always regret not getting to see the sequel to one of her favorite movies about two Irish bothers and their vigilantism.

"Sand, and the crash of the waves on the shore. Palm trees against a backdrop of the bluest blue…" Rush had walked the beaches near San Diego before deciding to join the Icarus project, something he remembered even now, the feel of sand beneath bare feet. The palm trees had been planted there, not naturally occurring, but the water that evening had almost been cerulean in color, sky and water blurring into one as the yellows, pinks, oranges and finally midnight blues had crossed the sky with the setting sun.

Chloe laughed, realizing some of their favorite things were the same. Rush smiled, his lips pressing into her skin once more as their talk, knowing each had a fond memory they could still smile about. Chloe melted into his embrace, wrapping her arms around his waist as they stood there, content with one another, neither really wanting to move yet.

"We should get back to work." He finally said, letting her go, letting the thoughts of things left undone on Earth float away. Chloe let her mind return to the equation, clearing her throat, finally turning to stare at the area that had returned to normal – intent on solving the equation before she ate next, or had even a moments rest. She was fairly convinced that the equation would be the answer. "It's almost night time, stay the night with me?" Chloe raised an eyebrow at him, turning away from her work to stare at him boldly, her gaze traveling over his face, down his neck, watching the muscles tighten as he clenched his jaw. She let a grin play over her lips, knowing that even asking her that question was still frightening for him.

"I'll let myself in if you aren't there when I get done here." She finally nodded to him, seeing the muscles in his jaw and neck relax, a look of pleasure on his face. His eyes swept over her possessively as he hesitated at the door, Chloe swearing to herself that he was having an internal debate of whether or not to toss her over one of the crates now, or actually return to work. The familiar heat spread through her abdomen, pooling lower as he continued to burn her image into his mind, his Adam's apple bobbing as he realized he had been caught, his eyes lingering too long on the bow of her lips.

"Till then my, Peach." Rush turned, letting himself out of the hallway to return to his work, Chloe left frowning once again at her calculations, the math gone as she puzzled out this new bit of information she wasn't ready to share with him just yet, just in case. She let out a heavy breath, trying to push the carnal thoughts of Rush's hand buried in the folds between her legs, his lips closed around her nipples, of the feel of his body pressed to hers once again. Shoving the lust aside, she glared at her equation.

"Damnit, Eli, I need you." She cursed, pounding her fist on the wall, knowing he would have been able to solve this faster than her and Rush. They needed him, and when they needed him the most he wasn't even there with them, if she could believe the writing on the wall.

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><p><strong>XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX<strong>

**XoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoXoX**

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><p><em>Floating, that was the word she had been looking for. Floating. She couldn't even force her eyes open any more, unwilling to look at her captors, unable to force herself to look at them through the shifting water, through the glass. The suit on her skin would chaff had it not been so incredibly skin tight, had the mask not been fitted in place over her face. She continued to breathe her mouth and nose the only dry area on her any more, and even then, the moisture of her breathing didn't even leave that too dry.<em>

_'It's a dream,' Chloe told herself over and over as she floated, as she tried to formulate what was happening to her. She had been taken, and had things done to her, she was sure of that. 'It's just a dream.' She reassured herself again, forcing her eyes open, fighting back from the edge of the glass as a blue face stared at her in curiosity. She felt the blow on the glass, felt the liquid rush out around her and carry her out to the floor. _

_It wasn't a blue face above her now, it was Rush, speaking but she couldn't hear him, couldn't even decipher human speech at the moment. He grabbed her and they ran, she following blindly as he led her along corridors, saving her._

_The world fell out from under her as she felt the stab through her chest, watching two blue faces as her eyes fluttered close._

_'It's just a dream.' Chloe repeated to herself, over and over as Scott winced as her fist connected with his jaw. 'Just a dream.' She frantically though as Rush fell into her arms, his blood seeping into her shirt, shock flitting across her face as she just screamed._

**_-V-_**

"Peach!" She woke with a start, her face wet with tears and sweat, the bed side light on as she woke in an unfamiliar bed, a lithe arm around her as she started to wail. She hadn't had nightmares in a long time, hadn't felt the terror of her capture, of her resurrection, of seeing Rush shot since she knew she was in the simulation. She turned into his arms as she cried, his voice soft, but the words unheard as she tamped down the terror once more, hiding it away for another time.

'Two arms.' She realized as she jumped back, falling out of the bed onto carpeted floor, not the metal of Destiny. Moonlight shone through the window as she shook her head. "This isn't real." She said quickly, her breath hitching as she started to hyperventilate.

"What's not real, Peach?" Rush asked as he slipped out of the bed, turning the royal blue coverlet down and kneeling on the floor beside her.

"You're not real. You were shot, and we're on a ship, billions of light years away from Earth." She explained, trembling as he shook his head with a slight smile.

"No Peach, we dialed Earth a long time ago, don't you remember?" Rush made himself comfortable on the floor as Chloe backed until she felt the wall behind her, eyes taking in the room. What she had originally thought was carpet was a nice blue and black rug on dark hard wood floor. The room was a very pale shade of grey, curtains, windows, everything like a home.

"No." She said shakily as she noticed the glint on her ring finger, a small but well cut diamond set into the familiar thistle design so pronounced in Scottish art. The stone caught her attention and kept it as Rush sighed, running a hand through his hair, the locks still longer than what would be considered fashionable, but shorter than what it had been on Destiny. His cheeks were bare, just the beginnings of stubble scattered over his chin.

"What's the last thing you remember, Peach?" He asked gently, taking her hand as she noticed the ring on his finger, a continuation of the thistle pattern, the gold on his skin looking more in place, than the dark yellow metal on her own hand.

"We were in the hallway, and we danced, La Vie in Rose, and you asked me to spend the night with you, after Ginn had tried to reach out to me in the simulation. Oh God! Eli!" Chloe jerked her hand away, trying to scramble to her feet.

"Is fine. We went and saw our niece yesterday, remember? Pretty red hair just like her mother?"

"Ginn was in the computer, you idiot! How did she get out?!" Chloe screamed at him, clutching the sides of her head. This had to be a dream, had to be something, because she had not just lost a huge chunk of time. She couldn't have.

"Chloe, focus, Ginn spoke to you, but she's in the ship's computer still? Listen to yourself, Peach, you're exhausted from the day. Something triggered some old memories and your brain did the rest. Come back to bed with me, and I'm certain it will all be right in the morning." Rush got to his feet, holding his hand out to her as Chloe's eyes slid over his bare chest. It was wrong, this was wrong. Something wasn't right and she had to find it. This was the simulation still, it had to be.

"When did we get married?" She demanded, Rush's face falling into the right configuration, the easy smile, the wrinkles around his eyes prominent, the grey of his hair more, but the sable still there.

"Two minutes before we dialed Earth home. In case.." He trailed off, as she finally slid her hand into his.

"In case?" She asked as he pulled her close, kissing the center of her forehead as he held her.

"In case we didn't make it." He finally supplied, as Chloe let out a huge breath of relief, her fingers finding the evidence that she was either dreaming, or she was trapped in another part of the simulation. The scar, the scar from his surgery to remove the tracking device was gone. "You're remembering now?"

"Yes, I remember a lot." She lied.

"Good, now let's go back to sleep." Rush yawned as he pulled her back to the bed. Chloe followed, sliding in the sheets with him as he pulled her to his chest, nuzzling his face into the back of her neck. Lazy kisses pressed against the bone of her spine, up the back of her neck as she relaxed into his arms. "Goodnight, Peach." His lips moved against her skin as she stared at the wall.

Chloe's mind went over the latest information she had gleaned, hoping that she could find the answer of why she would be having a dream, a simulation of something that hadn't happened already. From what she had understood about the chair, it worked on memories, not things that hadn't happened yet.

_It is paramount we return the simulation as close to reality as possible._

Rush's voice echoed in her mind as she went over the information, waiting for the simulation/dream Rush's breath to fall into the familiar snore pattern of relaxed sleep. She had only just learned this recently herself, before they had gone into the pods. Something that Ginn or Amanda Perry would have no way to know, or so Chloe hoped. His breathing was normal, even, but it was still an approximation of his guarded sleep, not the fully relaxed breathing that would lead to his snoring. Chloe rolled her eyes at the thought as she felt his arms tighten around her, holding her closer, one of his knees slipping between her legs, one hand going to cup a breast. She felt fingertips trail across her hip bone, pulling her back further; their bodies completely spooned together, her teeth worrying her lower lip as the lazy kisses started on her neck again.

"I thought you wanted to sleep…" she whispered to him, gasping as his teeth nipped at her shoulder, the hand on her hip pulling her nightgown free from her lower half, the soft fabric bunching around her stomach only a moment before the gown was pulled free from her.

"Maybe later." Rush breathed as he rid himself of his sleeping pants, one hand on her knee, opening her wide, his other around her neck, holding her immobile to him, Chloe's breaths coming in little gasps. She tried to wriggle from his grasp, knowing he was a simulation, but the need to feel him buried deep inside her finally kept her still. It was a dream or a simulation – she wasn't being unfaithful to him, not really. Rational thought left her mind as she felt him move, hips slow as he pulled her leg up further, holding her open to him.

"Later." Chloe agreed as she felt the head of his cock twitch against her lips, coating himself in her wetness, a deep purr of appreciation sounding deep in his chest.

"I will never be thankful enough for you," Rush whispered against her ear as his hips surged forward, Chloe crying out as he filled her, her eyes snapping open, taking in the FTL light streaming in through the window of Rush's room on Destiny, sweat pouring off her as she sat up with a start, disoriented, the bed beside her cold, unused this evening. Her breathing uneven, she gasped down lungful after lungful of air.

"Nicholas?" She called tentatively to the darkness of the room, wondering if he was even in there. She felt exhausted, gauging the time to be late into what they'd consider night time, her eyes adjusting to the semi-light, looking for his outline. Reaching over, she turned on the light on the bedside table, noticing his glasses and notebooks in a pile on the nightstand. The chess pieces had been returned to his table, set right on the board. His shoes were not in their usual spot by the door. He had not come to bed yet.

Letting out a puff of air, her hair disturbed around her face, she felt her cheeks redden at the dream she had just had, knowing that if she had to wait for him much longer, she was going to drive herself mad. Footsteps echoed in the hallway, the door swished open, Chloe pulling her extra blanket up over her legs as she saw black leather boots, followed by the familiar shock of red hair.

"Ginn…" Chloe breathed as the other woman came into the room, palming the door lock.

"I apologize for the cloak and dagger game earlier, but Perry is up to no good." Ginn said, a frown sliding across her face.

"She's trying to get Nicholas into the chair again, so he'll upload into the database and be there with her, isn't she?" Chloe asked, pulling her blanket tighter around herself as she swore the temperature in the room dropped twenty degrees in the span of a second.

"She is."

"And she's willing to let me, Eli and Young die to make it happen?"

"She most definitely is."

"How can I trust you're not another simulation sent to keep me from solving this?"

"You can't – all you can trust is that I want Eli alive, and in stasis as much as you do. You've experienced yourself how realistic these simulations are now. I want nothing more than the three years I'd get to spend with him, here, while you all drift. And I'm not willing to sacrifice anyone to make that happen."

Chloe nodded, weighing her options. Ginn could easily be Perry, or it could really be her. "Then I suppose you better tell me all that you know thus far, and we can start planning from there."

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><p><strong>Well my dears, that's this week's installment! I hope you enjoyed it as much as I had fun writing it. I promise that eventually our anti-heroic doctor and his succulent little peach will stop being interrupted - eventually... Many Many wonderful thanks to my regular reviewers - Charlotte Ashmore, badkidoh, anawey, and the lovely lovely Guest (truly darling I do like seeing you be here each week!) - you all keep me on my toes with questions, and fuel the imagination. Next week's update <em>may <em>be delayed by a day, but we've reached the mid-point. Next week, Chapter 11 - Discipline. See you all then! - S**

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><p><strong>This chapter was written to Japanese Metal Band Dir En Grey's Merciless Cult. <strong>


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